The Windmill Turns Both Ways
by Blaizekit
Summary: [Time Travel] When 12-year-old Naruto inexplicably finds himself in the future, he must navigate through a maze of half-truths and terrible revelations in his quest to return home. Everything and everyone that he knows has changed, and war looms. Yet the worst part of all of this is being left behind and in the dark. Getting home again may require breaking a few rules.
1. Introduction Arc: Part I

**The Windmill Turns Both Ways**

**Rated T for ninja violence/language; Time travel fic; Gen-fic; In-progress.**

**A/N: Hey look, my first foray into Naruto! The first story arc, and especially the first chapter, repeats some stuff from the canon; but the story will diverge very quickly once the groundwork is laid. I'm tweaking things a bit, obviously. They don't have time travel in the canon. Not **_**yet**_** anyway. Oh god. I don't put anything past Masashi Kishimoto anymore.**

******I'm a big NICO Touches the Walls fan and I've been listening to them a lot writing this fic (because they remind me of the series whenever I hear them. I can't help it.) so I'm going to be a nerd and assign a song of theirs as a 'theme' for each story arc. For the Introduction Arc, that would be "Endless Roll" from the album _Humania._ I'll try to pick ones that have translations for them on lyricstranslatedotcom; links to those are also on my tumblr. (ooh, technology~)**

* * *

_Someday the graffiti written on these walls will expand into an imaginary map/ As for right now, the washed out color of all those futures disappears/ Carrying nothing but useless things, I forgot the important key/ The feeling of jumping from my room comes flooding back/ Days when I felt I wasn't allowed to go anywhere return/ Leave me all on my own_

* * *

**1: Introduction Arc: Part I**

"Oi, Naruto. Can you make a delivery for me, since you're done with that?"

Naruto peered at Teuchi over the edge of his ramen bowl, out of which he was just slurping down the last of the broth. He set the bowl down with a loud, contented sigh and rubbed the back of his head.

"I'd like to, gramps, but I'm supposed to be meeting Iruka-sensei here. He's running late, but…"

"Come on," Teuchi insisted, putting the delivery box on the counter. "I'll tell him where you are. That bowl you just had as an appetizer will be on me."

"Awright!" Naruto snatched the box and the address ran out. "I'll be right back!" he would do just about anything for free ramen.

Naruto jogged lightly through the village, feeling very content with the world. It always felt good to see home again after a mission, but this last one had not only been crazy dangerous– even _Orochimaru_ had shown up at one point– but it was also hands down the most directly important one to the village that he had yet participated in. After all the pain, terror, and uncertainly left in the village in the wake of the disastrous Chuunin exams and the Sandaime Hokage's death, the village finally had a strong pillar to rebuild on once again. He had brought them a _Hokage_, and all the security and hope that came with that title.

Jiraiya had been there too, of course; it's not like he could take all the credit. He had taken care of most of the whole fighting-super-dangerous-missing-nin part. Facing two Akatsuki and Orochimaru within the span of a single journey would have been a bit too much for Naruto to handle alone.

Still, it seemed like most people didn't even realize that Naruto had even gone with Jiraiya on the mission to find Tsunade, much less be grateful for his help. That was a little bit disappointing. People had started looking at him with a little bit more interest after his fight against Neji in the final round of the Exams, but for the most part they ignored him as usual; and when they didn't ignore him, they were muttering something contemptuous behind his back.

He couldn't really be very upset about that though. Not when it felt like the great oppressive blanket of fear and mourning had finally been lifted off the village. And if nothing else, the mutterings were tinged with a little less hate and a little more curiosity than before.

"Delivery!" Naruto chirped, stepping into the Yamanaka flower shop.

"Naruto?" Ino stood up from where she had been sitting behind the counter.

"Oh, good," a tall man with a long blonde ponytail came walking in from the back. Naruto vaguely recognized him. "Since Mom is out today, I thought we'd have lunch in the shop, Ino. Fast service! Thanks for bringing that, Naruto-kun."

Ino was not as polite as her father. "But why is _Naruto_ the one bringing it? Is there even anything left in that box?" she griped, pointing at him accusingly.

"Pfft, why would I need _your_ ramen? Iruka-sensei's back there waiting to treat me! Later!" after raising his hand in a brief wave, he turned to run out.

"Wait– Naruto!" she called after him, and he turned back around. "Sasuke-kun… has there been any…"

He looked into her hopeful, anxious face and broke slowly into a wide grin.

"I finally dragged Tsunade-baachan down to the hospital a couple of hours ago," he said, giving the patented Nice Guy thumbs-up he'd grown so fond of lately. "She used her medical ninjutsu on Sasuke and he woke up right away. He's going to be okay."

Ino covered her mouth, tears welling up in her eyes. "Thank goodness."

"You can go to the hospital after we eat," Inoichi said gently. "I'll look after things here."

Smiling, Naruto turned and dashed out. That warm feeling was expanding in his chest, making his heart float like a balloon.

It didn't matter whether most of the village acknowledged his part in bringing the Hokage back. No– there were things that mattered much more than that. It was enough to know that he'd had a part in something significant for the village… and his friends. Seeing Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei open their eyes again, and seeing Sakura smile… just that made it worth it.

Naruto went back the way he came, dodging civilians pushing wheelbarrows and carrying timber, repairing the damage from Orochimaru's attack. Everyone was working cheerfully, banded together and confident in the village's strength. They no longer had the anxious air of a leaderless people that might be attacked by a foreign power at any moment.

As expected, Iruka was there when he got back. He looked up when Naruto came in, slurping the noodles that were hanging halfway out of his mouth.

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto cried indignantly. "You couldn't wait until I got back?"

"Hm," he snorted as Naruto slid into the seat beside him and Teuchi quickly put a fresh bowl of ramen in front of the boy. "You started it. _You_ didn't wait until I got here– Teuchi-san told me."

"_But,_" Naruto frowned, "I was _hungry_ and it was _boring_ just sitting around here waiting. What made you so late anyway? Tsunade-baachan had to remind me I was meeting you and I ran here all the way from the hospital, but you ended up way later than me. If I'd have known, I could have stuck around to see what she thought of Bushy– I mean Lee's injuries."

"Right, sorry," Iruka said. "I was in a meeting and it ran over a bit. There's a lot to work out, what with the new Hokage and everything that's happened recently. Academy classes have been disrupted so often lately that we're trying to negotiate a way for covering one another's classes if someone has to leave suddenly or is needed for a mission."

"Mhm," Naruto mumbled through a mouthful of ramen.

Iruka watched him out of the corner of his eye with a small smile. "I heard that your trip ended up being pretty interesting. It's not every day one gets to see all three of the Sannin in action at once. I bet the landscape didn't fare too well."

"It was incredible," Naruto agreed, eager to recount his experiences. "And I won this from Baachan because she bet I couldn't learn my new jutsu in a week," he pulled the First Hokage's necklace from under his shirt. "Wait until you see my new jutsu! It's just as good as Sasuke's _Chidori_. He got ahead of me in the Exams, but I figure we're on equal ground now."

"You really have grown, Naruto. You seem much stronger than when you wanted this," Iruka said, tilting his hitai-ate.

"Right, right?" Naruto said gleefully. "Even someone like Ero-sennin acknowledged me and taught me the _Rasengan_. It's clear that I'm naturally awesome!"

"Now now, you have a long way to go yet," Iruka said with mock sternness, unaffected by the boy's bravado. "The village is going to need that strength. We lost not only Sandaime Hokage-sama, but a lot of other good shinobi in the invasion. Yet, we still have to keep with the demands of our clients. You and your team will as busy as everyone else in the missions to come. Even Kakashi-san will have to take missions even though he just got out of the hospital. And sometimes us teachers will have to go too."

"Why? Why accept the missions if we don't have enough people?" Naruto frowned in puzzlement.

"We have to keep up a strong face the best we can," Iruka said. "We have to make sure to keep our clients' confidence in us and, above all, not appear weak to any foreign villages who may try to take advantage of this opportunity to invade us themselves."

"Man, that's rough. But… we can do it." Naruto nodded determinedly.

"Godaime-sama's inauguration is in three days." Iruka drained the last of his ramen bowl and set it down. "That should put a lot of minds at ease."

Naruto stood up. "Thanks for the ramen, Iruka-sensei. I'm gonna go try to find Konohamaru now. He seemed upset about something this morning but I was too busy trying to drag Tsunade-baachan down to the hospital to really talk to him."

"Ah," Iruka looked subdued at that. Konohamaru was one of his many students at the Academy, after all. He had a little more insight into the boy's personality and feelings than most. "Okay. I'll see you later, Naruto. Good luck."

…..

The next three days were ones of adjusting to changes. The effects of everything that had taken place since the start of the Exams were slowly filtering down now that things were mostly settled. There was no sign that something decidedly _un_settling was rapidly closing in.

The day after meeting with Iruka, Naruto found out exactly what Konohamaru was so upset about, and _how_ upset he really was. The crazy kid locked himself in the Hokage's study with an intricate series of booby traps to keep everyone out, and Naruto was occupied for the greater part of the day trying to coax him out.

He tried everything: threats, friendly words, ramen, even Oiroke no Jutsu, but to no avail. He didn't know what to do then. That was pretty much his entire arsenal. He had finally decided to resort to pulling out the Rasengan when Tsunade simply knocked him out of the way and went into the study, calmly grabbed a book, and left as if the traps weren't even there.

It took a while, but Konohamaru eventually managed to explain what was bothering him. He didn't like the idea of his grandfather being replaced so soon. He didn't understand complicated stuff about politics and keeping up a strong face to the rest of the world. Naruto couldn't blame him– he didn't really understand that stuff either.

Sasuke was finally released from the hospital, though he had to take at least a day's bed rest at home. Naruto and Sakura would have spent that whole day with him if they could, but they had been assigned several D-rank missions helping to clear the village of debris so that buildings could be rebuilt. That evening, though, they rushed over to his apartment to keep him company.

Sasuke was sitting up in bed and was awake most of the time, though he was still staring blankly into space a lot. The room was soothingly dim, and Naruto and Sakura tried to speak in soft voices. According to Tsunade, the psychological attack that Sasuke had suffered at the hands of his brother had been damaging on a very deep level, past the attack's usual potential, which was already formidable. The personal nature of the attack made it even worse than what Kakashi had faced. Essentially, they had to try to pull him back gently to the real world from a dream world of nightmares.

But Tsunade had also deemed him fit for release, which had to count for something. Though he sometimes seemed to drift off for no reason, most of the time he was able to respond to what he felt like responding to, and even had a touch of his old sarcasm.

After being good and following doctor's orders the whole day, he was even allowed to attend the inauguration the next day. Kakashi kept close by his side during it, keeping an eye on his young charge, though of course Naruto and Sakura were brimming with faith in their friend and were just glad to see him moving around again. Sasuke stood at the edge of the crowd, leaning against a tree, but his friends and classmates were in the thick of it when Tsunade declared herself the Fifth Hokage.

"Isn't Tsunade-sama amazing?" Sakura said, her eyes shining with awe as she and Naruto looked up at the Hokage Tower from below. "It's strange seeing her in the Hokage hat after seeing an old man wear it for so long."

"Pfft," Naruto said, hands linked behind his head casually. "She's pretty old too, you know. She just uses some technique to stay looking young. But, yeah, she's still pretty cool."

"Just with her presence, you can tell she's a powerful shinobi. Just like Jiraiya-sama," Sakura said. "And Orochimaru was also like that, in the Forest of Death, even though that was more terrifying than anything. It makes you realize what it means to be at the level of a Kage." She smiled when Naruto grumbled a little at that.

"Whatever. I wouldn't _want_ it to be too easy, or it wouldn't be worth going for," he said. "We can only go up from here, Sakura-chan."

"Mhm," Sakura assented, absently touching the ends of her newly shortened hair. "I at least know I don't have a chance of being promoted to Chuunin this time since I didn't pass the preliminaries, but maybe you or Sasuke-kun will. After everything that happened, it's really made me realize that I have to become strong enough to handle things on my own in a situation. It can't all go one way; if we're a team, we protect _one another_." Her eyes drifted to where Sasuke and Kakashi were standing behind everyone else.

"You're right, but I'm not going to get knocked out and make you have to defend me ever again," Naruto crossed his arms. "That was just embarrassing."

Sakura's eyes flashed. "Oh, so it's _embarrassing_ to be defended by me? You're welcome."

Naruto winced. "No, I didn't mean it like that, Sakura-chan! I just meant… I should have been there to help, but I wasn't. And we had to rely on other teams until Sasuke took out those Sound guys. I still don't even really know what happened with all of that."

"I could say the same thing about when that Gaara captured me." Sakura said.

"You really shouldn't feel bad about that. That guy had monster strength. Literally."

"Oi," Kiba butted in. Team 8 had been beside them since the start of the inaguration. "Do either of you know when they're supposed to tell us who made Chuunin?"

"Whoever made it would probably know by now," Shino intoned. "Why? Because Kurenai-sensei said the Godaime would follow the choices the Sandaime already made."

"That's probably true, but she's bound to have been busy with other things besides the Chuunin selection. Not to mention that there are some other people who also get a say in it." Sakura mused.

"I haven't seen anyone promoted yet," Kiba said. "God, it would be so annoying if they just called it off and no one gets it. I wonder what the chances are that they did…"

"No way, the other countries wouldn't stand for that," Sakura said dismissively. "If no one makes it, it'll be because no one was good enough. Why do you care anyway? You lost in the preliminaries like I did."

"Well, Naruto beat me that time, but if he beat me to Chuunin too, I'd have to seriously consider quitting as a ninja–" he dodged Naruto's punch with a cackle and hid behind Hinata, who spluttered in the face of an enraged Naruto. Akamaru barked excitedly from on top of Kiba's hood.

"You bastard!" Naruto fumed as Sakura held him back. "I'll take you on any time! And quit hiding behind Hinata!"

"He didn't mean it, Naruto-kun, he was just trying to provoke you–" Hinata started. Her words were drowned out by the sound of applause. They had missed the end of Tsunade's address and now it was over. Guiltily, they broke apart and joined the applause.

Tsunade, Jiraiya, and the Elders left the roof of the tower and the crowd was gradually dispersing. A lot of people had duties and missions to get back to already, but those that didn't lingered around. Most of the stores and restaurants were staying open late tonight, and it was sort of like a miniature holiday, as most of the nonessential shinobi and civilian workers had the day off.

"How do you feel, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked as she and Naruto drifted back to the rest of their team.

"Tired," he said, but didn't feel the need to elaborate any further. He _looked_ tired. There were bags under his eyes even though he'd spent so much time sleeping recently.

"You just need to go home and rest," Naruto advised. "You're still better off than you were yesterday, so I'm sure you'll be almost at full strength tomorrow."

"Maybe… maybe we should ask if our team can wait a little longer before we go on a mission," Sakura said hesitantly.

"No," Sasuke said suddenly, his voice sharpening. "I'm not so weak I can't handle whatever stupid little _D_ or _C_-ranked mission they decide to send us on next. It's better than sitting around here."

"Well…" Kakashi said, and he eye-smiled when they all turned to look at him. "Just so you all know, I think you will have to do this next one on your own. I have a solo mission starting, but you three will be sent out once you are ready, whether I am back or not. Perhaps it will be more of a challenge than you think."

Sasuke just gave a 'hn' in response, which rolled off of Kakashi, as usual.

"I have to be up very early, unfortunately, so I will see you all later," Kakashi said. He casually withdrew his Icha Icha Paradise and walked off with his nose buried in it.

"Early? That sounds suspicious to me," Naruto said.

"A mission on our own…" Sakura said.

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan. After all, it can't be worse than the Forest of Death, and we did that on our own," Naruto reminded confidently. "And Sasuke has his Chidori once he gets better, and I just got a _super-awesome new jutsu_ that I didn't have then either." He hinted the last part heavily while looking at Sasuke, but the other boy didn't take the bait. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets and a dispassionate expression.

"I guess I'm going home," Sasuke said. "Don't bother me tonight unless it's about a mission or making Chuunin."

"I'm going home too," Sakura said quickly. "I'll walk with you part of the way." Sasuke didn't answer, but she started after him anyway when he didn't say no.

"B-but Sakura-chan, I thought we could…" Naruto started, but the other two were walking away and had stopped listening. Naruto sighed and scratched his head. Now what?

Since evening was gathering in the edges of the sky and he hadn't eaten since the morning, he decided to take advantage of all the restaurants being open and get something to eat. As an added bonus, many of them had brought their dishes out in the street to take advantage of the influx of traffic in front of the tower. It was almost like a festival. He wandered around, weaving in and out of the happily chatting groups of people that gathered at these places. It got somewhat boring after sampling enough here and there that he was too stuffed to eat much anymore. Without any of his friends in sight, there was only so much fun to be had, but he didn't feel like leaving the energetic atmosphere for home either. He settled for people-watching on a wall while he slowly finished off some dango.

_I wonder how Gaara's doing,_ he thought.

As the sun drooped lower in the sky and he was just thinking about going home since there was no one to hang out with, Jiraiya found Naruto and told him that he was leaving Konoha tonight.

"What?" Naruto exclaimed, jumping down from the wall he'd been sitting on, "But why? You _just_ got back to the village! And Tsunade-baachan is your old teammate, right? Why don't you want to stay around a little longer? I'm not sure if Shizune-neechan can keep her from celebrating too much tonight on her own."

"I was invited to the party, of course, but I think you're really missing how much that would _not_ help," Jiraiya said, shaking his head. "Besides, it's going to be a more diplomatic affair than Tsunade's really wanting anyway. The whole Council and the Clan Heads are going to be there, so it's all very aboveboard."

"In other words, you're trying to escape the politics," Naruto guessed.

Jiraiya grimaced. "Hey now, I really have some things to do. I help Konoha maintain its ties in other lands, and that's especially important now that we have a new Hokage and everyone is wary of how that might change things. And no one is better for this than me, like you said, as a long-time teammate with thorough insight into her personality and policy."

"You mean Konoha's ties in other lands' bathhouses," Naruto muttered.

Jiraiya just smiled and ruffled Naruto's hair. "You'll see me again really soon. I've just got a few important things to check on, and depending on that, I'll need to come back here for an important mission."

"What's that?" Naruto asked keenly.

"If it concerns you then you'll know then; if not, then you don't have to worry about it. Later, kid." He waved with a smirk and walked off through the thinning crowd, heading in the direction of the village gate.

Naruto huffed mildly and stretched. Everyone was packing up now, so he decided to finally go on home too.

Walking lazily through the streets, Naruto thought about what Jiraiya had said. He could feel that everyone was barely on the other side of the turning point that had just happened, that of the Fifth Hokage. Kakashi had confirmed Iruka's guess that they would all be sent out on missions again very soon, and that they would possibly even have to do missions without him, especially if any of them ended up making Chuunin. He thought about what Sakura had said about Kage level and wondered if he could nag Jiraiya into teaching him more jutsu the next time he showed up. He thought about Sasuke and Itachi and the Akatsuki and Orochimaru and all of this made his stomach twist with a mixture of terror and excitement.

He imagined himself standing in front of a large crowd wearing the Hokage hat and looking out over everyone with his arms crossed in a cool pose (looking older, and stronger, and ravishingly handsome, of course). His teammates behind him, and his village before him, he'd say something impossibly badass, but also very profound and inspirational. And he would invite Tsunade to his party and let her drink and gamble as much as she wanted. The thought made him grin widely to himself.

When Naruto got into his pajamas and crawled into bed minutes after arriving home, he was still so absorbed in fantasizing about the future (the various scenarios becoming more and more elaborate) that he would wonder many times later whether everything that came after was just the by-product of his overactive imagination.

There was one problem with that theory: none of his visions of the future included war.

…..

Naruto grumbled, half-consciously protesting at the sun filtering through his eyelids. He rolled over and made to pull the covers over his head, but he couldn't find them. Frowning slightly, he moved his hand around to try to find his blanket, but he still couldn't feel it. Annoyed, he opened his eyes– and then blinked in confusion.

He sat up hesitantly, looking around. He was lying down in the forest, at the base of a very large tree. From the quality of the light, he could tell that it was just morning, and the air was slightly chilly, but not unbearable. He was still wearing what he went to bed in, a pair of orange shorts and a black shirt with a spiral on the front of it.

"What the hell?" he said out loud. He pinched his own arm and it hurt. Not a dream, then. Genjutsu?

Naruto stood up and looked around uneasily, heart going unusually fast considering how quiet things were. He tried to spot anything that looked dream-like or out of the ordinary to tip of the presence of an illusion, but everything looked exactly as in reality. He squinted out to where it looked like the trees ended, where the sun shone brighter, and thought he could see a few wooden buildings in the distance.

"Well, if this is an illusion, I'm probably _supposed_ to go there, and then it's a trap," he murmured, scratching his head. Even so, facing the enemy directly was way better than sitting around waiting for them to come to him. He turned and ran up the side of the tree he'd been laying under… and only made it up a couple of meters before his feet detached. It was so unexpected that he fell backwards with an undignified cry and landed hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

"Oof," he groaned. A few leaves fluttered down and landed in his hair and on his face. He stood up and shook them off. "What was that?"

Naruto held up his hand in a half-ram seal and concentrated on his chakra. To his surprise, it was almost completely depleted. He could feel a small trickle that was steadily replenishing his reserves, but it felt… odd. He hadn't realized it sooner because not only was running out of chakra an extremely rare occurrence for him, but the times he had were always accompanied by a great deal of physical pain and exhaustion. One did not just _wake up_ with chakra exhaustion while being physically rested. Even more troubling was the fact that when he ran out of chakra, his body tended to go into emergency mode and pull the Kyuubi's chakra out to make up for it. Anxiously, he probed around, but he could not access the fox's chakra. He could faintly sense it– that was good at least– but it felt very weak, as if it was also reduced to almost nothing. If his own lack of chakra was worrying, _that_ was downright alarming.

It wasn't like it took very much to stick to trees. He was sure he had enough for that at least, but his control was messed up.

"Man, this is _bad_," Naruto mumbled, opening his eyes. He wished that he'd gotten Sakura to teach him how to dispel genjutsu so he'd at least be able to tell whether all this was real or not. But (as far as he knew) even the most skilled users couldn't keep a genjutsu up forever, so that question would soon resolve itself one way or another.

Sticking with the decision to face whatever this was head on rather than trying to guess at the details, Naruto walked carefully toward where he'd seen the buildings in the distance. If he wanted to figure out where he was, or find the person who was casting this illusion on him, that was surely the place to go… trap or not.

When he got out of the woods, he saw that it was a small village he didn't recognize, down a slight hill from where he was standing. It was really just a small collection of farm houses, with fields stretching all around. A few people were in the fields already, tending to the crops. He could see scattered chickens and geese, and some horses tied outside of what looked like some sort of outpost station. He took a deep breath and started to walk down to it, keeping an eye out all around him.

He felt extremely exposed without chakra to defend himself with, or his equipment, or even _shoes_, but judging by the trees and the landscape, he was pretty certain that this was still the Land of Fire, at least. As long as he didn't meet any enemy shinobi, his taijutsu was good enough to protect him from most threats. He spared a stray thought to be impressed once again at Lee for having to rely _exclusively_ on taijutsu, before he pushed it down and tried to focus. Being careful and watchful wasn't exactly Naruto's specialty, and it was taking some effort.

As he approached, a boy about his age that was hoeing near the edge of the road stopped in his work to stare at him.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Naruto took a deep breath and walked to the edge of the field where the boy was working. "Um. Hello. I was wondering if–"

"DAD! KITO! THERE'S A WEIRD GUY HERE!" the boy yelled toward what looked like a work shed nearby, cupping his hands around his mouth for volume.

"No, wait! I'm not anyone suspicious," Naruto said, trying his best to be calm and unthreatening rather than ask the boy what his goddamned problem was. "I just–"

"What're you yelling about, Shinji?" a middle aged-looking man and a younger man came out of the shed. They were wearing thick gloves and belts with wood-working tools in them. The boy's father and brother, Naruto guessed. He held up his hands in a pacifying way.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle anyone," he said. "I'm just lost, and I was hoping you could give me some directions."

"He came out of the woods!" Shinji said, holding the hoe like he might charge Naruto with it. "He might be a bandit!"

"What the hell makes you think I'm a bandit, bastard?" Naruto finally lost his cool and shrieked at the other boy. "Do you have dirt clods for eyes?"

"I like this kid," the young man, Kito, laughed.

"Calm down, Shinji," his father sighed. "Please forgive my son," he added to Naruto, who was already berating himself internally for his outburst. "The shinobi that was posted here on watch had to be called back to Konoha recently, so we're all a little on edge. We've heard that criminals have been coming out of the woodwork in places where the staff shortage is leaving them undefended."

Naruto nodded, relief flooding him. At _least_ he was in his own country. Though, he'd never considered that the shortage would affect ordinary citizens like this. Iruka hadn't been kidding about how serious things were.

"I'm actually on my way to Konoha right now," Naruto said. "Can you tell me which way it is from here, and how far?"

"It's not far," Kito said, "But…" his eyes traveled over Naruto's odd appearance, from his bright clothes to his shoeless feet. "You should probably rethink going there right now. The village is still recovering from the attack and Hokage-sama isn't letting visitors come in for the most part, except for carpenters and construction workers and food delivery, things like that. Most of our people went to help in order to feel a little better protected, since Tsugi-san had to be called back into duty. It's a mess over there."

"Oh," Naruto said. "Well, that's alright, I'm not a visitor. I may not look it right now, but I'm actually a Konoha shinobi. Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet you!" he added brightly, grinning.

The three glanced at one another and all burst out laughing at the same time.

"What's so funny?" Naruto fumed. Okay, so he didn't exactly look very official in his nightclothes. But that wasn't his fault!

"So, you're the Land of Fire's Jinchuuriki? Konoha's hero? The one who stopped Pein all by himself?" the old man chuckled.

"Pein… Jinchuuriki?" Naruto tilted his head uncomprehendingly, scowling. Now he was confused _and_ annoyed. Unfortunately, that seemed to amuse them even more.

"I heard he was still pretty young, but there's no way he is a little squirt like you," Kito said. "It's cute that you look up to him, kid, but it's a hundred years too soon for you to go around claiming to be him."

Naruto was getting frustrated. "I'm not sure what you're talking about but I am most definitely Uzumaki Naruto!" he slapped a hand on his chest, "And I am a Konoha shinobi and I need to get back to my village before Tsunade-baachan finds out I'm missing and decides to beat me up for skipping out on missions when we're short on forces!"

This caused them to sober up a little bit.

"Well, if you really are a shinobi, even a weird one, it's true you need to get back there. Konoha needs all hands on deck right now," Kito said seriously.

"That's what I'm saying," Naruto said, nodding vigorously, "So can you help me out?"

"You just take this road south," The old guy said, pointing back down the road Naruto had walked in on. "It's about half a day's travel from here. Ah, well, probably less than that for a shinobi. I still find it hard to believe you are one, but if you weren't, I guess you wouldn't be fool enough to try to go to Konoha and pass for one."

"Where's your hitai-ate?" Shinji said suddenly, glaring at Naruto. "And all your ninja gear? And how did you end up here and not even know where Konoha is?"

"Hm…." Naruto grumbled and rubbed his head. "I don't know. I just woke up a little way into the woods there. I don't remember how I got here, so I'm hoping someone at home can figure out what happened. Maybe I started sleepwalking," he shrugged nonchalantly. Not that it would explain his chakra getting messed up. He was only joking with that suggestion. Mostly.

"A sleepwalking ninja," Shinji said flatly, clearly dubious.

"Ah… are you alright to go on your own?" Kito was starting to look doubtful, himself. He started to think maybe this was just a kid that was a little bit out of his mind, and it probably wouldn't be good for someone like that to walk into a nest of very tense and alert ninja.

"It'll be fine," Naruto insisted, nodding. "But, um…" he looked down at his feet embarrassedly. "I need some shoes… I don't have any money on me, but I'll pay you back as soon as I get a chance if you'll let me borrow some."

They agreed, and even though Shinji protested, they let Naruto take a pair of his shoes. They were simple straw tabi, not nearly as good as his ninja sandals, but better than nothing. The boys' father also insisted that he take a small pack of onigiri with him. Naruto thanked them and promised repayment repeatedly.

"Will he really be alright, I wonder?" Kito mused as they watched the boy take the road toward Konoha.

His father shrugged. "If he's really with Konoha, there's nothing to worry about. If he's not, then he's just a harmless crazy and they probably won't do anything to him. Even if they're on high alert right now, the Hokage is still kind."

….

Naruto munched on an onigiri, walking at a more sedate pace to eat lunch now that he was starting to recognize the surrounding area. He knew that he really wasn't far from Konoha at all.

His chakra was restoring itself very quickly, and the food was helping. He estimated it was already almost halfway back, which gave him enough for most of his techniques. He could probably even pull off the Rasengan if he could manage the level of control it required, though it would exhaust him again. He found that he could climb up a tree if he went slowly and concentrated. He had already used that to confirm his location a couple of times.

Because of that, he didn't feel quite as anxious anymore, but he was still confused. So far, nothing horrible had happened to him and no one had confronted him. The road was quiet. It seemed that what those villagers had said about few people coming this way was true. Naruto hadn't realized that Konoha had gone so far as to discourage visitors. It made sense, since that probably reduced the chances of Orochimaru or the Akatsuki slipping in again, but how did they keep accepting missions if no one was allowed in? Naruto shrugged mentally and licked his fingers when all the onigiri were gone. Hopefully no one had noticed that he was missing yet. Sakura would probably assume that he was out training if they had nothing to do, but if they were called in to do a mission, he was likely to be in big trouble. Naruto winced. How was he supposed to explain what happened, when he had no idea himself?

A sudden loud bark and deep throaty growl made him jump. Dropping into a battle-ready position in an instant, Naruto looked around quickly. The dense foliage on either side of the road made it difficult to see very far. He soon saw it, though. A huge white beast came stalking out of the bushes, head lowered menacingly. It was… _an enormous dog._

Naruto stood very still and tried to figure out what to do. Distract it, and then run away? He was certain that he had enough chakra for a few kage bunshin.

The dog came closer and sniffed at him. Suddenly it perked up its head, tongue lolling out of its mouth happily. It barked twice with a decidedly different tone than before and bounded up to Naruto, nosing at his face in greeting.

"Good dog…?" Naruto said warily, and the beast wagged its tail furiously.

"Oi! If it's just Naruto, then why did you run off so fast? You made it sound like there was an intruder or something," a familiar voice grumbled, and Naruto let out a breath he'd been holding when he saw Kiba emerge from the bushes behind the dog. "Sorry, Naruto. We were on perimeter duty and Akamaru heard you coming. We didn't smell you at first so I think it threw him off a little bit." He walked closer and looked at Naruto suspiciously, then sniffed. He pondered for a moment then shrugged, apparently satisfied, and jumped onto the giant dog's back.

"Um…" Naruto said. "Are you saying… _that_… is Akamaru?"

Kiba frowned. "Well of course he is, duh."

"But… he's HUGE!" Naruto wailed, and Akamaru whined through his nose.

"Seriously, why do you always go on about that?" Kiba crossed his arms and scowled. "I haven't noticed any difference. You exaggerate too much."

Naruto spluttered, quite unable to put his words together, but Kiba ignored him. He and Akamaru turned to face down the path where Naruto was headed.

"I guess you're heading back to the village? We'll go too, since it's time for us to change shifts anyway. My team's been on perimeter duty since early on." He didn't wait for an answer and the alleged Akamaru broke into a light run.

"W-wait!" Naruto jogged to keep up with them. "Perimeter duty?"

"Yeah, we've been put on that for now since we're all good tracker-types and all," Kiba yawned. "I wish we didn't have to start so early, though. Why are you coming back to the village so soon, anyway? I thought you had that S-rank mission with Gai-sensei and those other old guys."

"Eh? _S-rank?_ With Huge Eybrows-sensei?" Since when did he get S-rank missions? Ones that he couldn't _remember _receiving, at that.

"Why are you asking me? You're the one that told me about it this morning," Kiba snapped, glancing over at him irritably. His gaze stayed a little longer this time though, as if he suddenly noticed something, and Naruto looked back nervously. "Naruto, did you change your clothes since this morning? You seem kinda different for some reason."

"Ah…" Naruto laughed confusedly. He wondered if he really _did_ leave on a mission that morning and ended up in some kind of enemy trap that caused him to have a memory lapse. Or maybe it just messed up his brain so that nothing made sense. Then again… he eyed the huge Akamaru and looked at Kiba, realizing the other boy looked a little off, too. He sort of seemed taller and more built, though it was hard to tell next to the huge Akamaru. Or maybe Naruto just wasn't used to seeing Kiba without his trademark hoodie on. For some reason, instead, he was wearing a tough-looking leather jacket that made him seem… older, Naruto decided.

Maybe _this_ was the sign of weirdness that he had been looking out for? Naruto tensed and glanced all around them as they ran. If someone was about to attack, he wished they'd get it over with already. All this tension and weirdness was getting on his nerves.

They emerged on a hill Naruto was familiar with, one that overlooked the village.

"I'm gonna go around since I have to go report at the main gate," Kiba said. "See you later, I guess."

Naruto didn't answer. More specifically, he _couldn't_ answer, because his voice stopped working. He stared down at his supposed home and knew that this could not be reality.

The settlement he saw down below was only a little bit bigger than the one he had found earlier, and made of similar wood structures. But it was nestled in a space much too big for it. Naruto would have denied to the end of his breath that it was Konoha, except that he easily recognized the village wall and gate, like his home had been gutted to death from the inside of its shell and hollowed out. And at the back of it, there was the iconic Hokage Monument, displaying five faces. _Five_ faces, even though the Fifth Hokage had only been inaugurated yesterday.

Konoha was simply _gone_. There was a gaping hole in the ground where his village used to be, and that was terrifying even if there was no way it was real. A cold numbness weighed down his limbs and completely jammed his thoughts.

"Uh, are you okay?" he heard Kiba say distantly.

Akamaru barked and Naruto barely caught movement out of the corner of his eye before the feeling in his body suddenly returned, at the point where he felt a sharp pressure prick his throat. A kunai.

"Hey!" Kiba cried. "What're you–"

"If you're going to impersonate someone, you should research it a little better," Naruto heard a chilly voice from behind him. "Your disguise is a little out of date."

Naruto turned his head a little to the left, away from the edge of the knife. "K-Kakashi-sensei?" The man behind him tensed when he spoke.

"OI." Kiba interjected loudly. "What's going on?"

Naruto was going to ask the same thing, but when he turned his head some more, he caught sight of an angry red Sharingan, which swirled and pulled him into the blackness.

…..

"Kai!"

Naruto opened his eyes and gasped as if emerging from deep water. The first thing that he noticed was that he was bound tightly to a chair, ropes tied to his ankles, wrists, and around his chest. He was sitting in dim wooden room, definitely smaller than what he remembered of the Hokage's office, but unmistakably that was where he was. The desk in front of him had a banner with the kanji for "Hokage" draped over it and the Hokage herself was sitting behind it, her arms crossed and looking at him with a great deal less warmth than he was used to seeing in her eyes. Morino Ibiki was standing behind her at a respectful distance, but still looking very imposing.

"Whatever it was, I didn't do it!" Naruto wailed, noticing Ibiki's presence. "Please don't torture me!"

"Tsunade-sama…" Kiba started, and Naruto looked to see both he and Kakashi there standing a little bit behind him. "I don't understand what's going on. What's got you and Kakashi-sensei so worked up? It's just Naruto…"

"Naruto left the village on a mission this morning," Kakashi said in a steely voice that sent a shiver down Naruto's spine. "Besides, can't you tell that this guy isn't our Naruto? He looks years younger, as if the enemy was working off of old data to try and imitate him."

Kiba scratched his face. "Does he? But he smells like Naruto…"

Tsunade leaned forward to rest her chin on her hands, eyes narrowed at Naruto. "If you put aside the fact that fact that it is an outdated imitation, it is a perfect one, which apparently even works while the user is unconscious. It seems strange that an enemy would be able to pull off such a complete transformation but make such a basic mistake as getting the age wrong."

"The Akatsuki has created perfect copies in the past, using human sacrifices," Ibiki spoke up, stepping a little closer. "Though the user of that technique has been neutralized now, they showed it was possible. And we can't forget that Orochimaru also had considerable expertise in ninjutsu transformations as well as actual physical alterations. With Yakushi Kabuto still at large, it's definitely possible."

"I agree; but the question is, why would they go through the trouble for a disguise that would be seen through right away?" Kakashi said. "And if they were going to send a spy, surely it wouldn't be one that could be taken out by a basic genjutsu."

Naruto was a little irked by that comment but he was too confused and afraid to really feel angry about the potential slight at the moment. "Look, I don't know what's going on either but I am really Naruto! Come on, Baachan… Kakashi-sensei!"

Kakashi sighed and rubbed his head. "There is another possibility… it could be that it _is_ Naruto…" Naruto perked up at that, turning his head sharply to give his sensei a hopeful look, "…that he found out the true purpose of his mission and is pulling some kind of distraction scheme in order to escape."

Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose. "Mattaku," she grumbled. "I would rather it be an enemy nin…"

Kakashi thwacked him hard on top of the head with his fist, causing Naruto to screech indignantly.

"Oww! What the hell was that for?"

"Well, we know this one isn't a Kage Bunshin, at least," Kakashi said cheerily.

"We'll know for sure once we get a reply back from Gai," Tsunade sighed. "If Naruto is still with them, they are supposed to confirm that it's really him."

Naruto squirmed in his bonds. "Um… you guys keep talking about some mission with Huge Eyebrows-sensei… as for me, I don't even remember getting a mission like that, so I think I'm probably having a really weird dream right now, or else I'm in some kind of genjutsu… for one thing, I know for a fact that Orochimaru's attack didn't destroy the _entire village_."

"Orochimaru?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? Pein of the Akatsuki destroyed the village."

"That's common knowledge all over the world by now," Ibiki noted. "Unless their intention is to divert, I don't see how this can possibly be an enemy spy."

"The Akatsuki?" Naruto gasped. "Those black-cloaked bastards that put Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei in the hospital?"

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Kakashi looking at him very seriously.

"Naruto," he said slowly, "What is the last thing that you remember?"

Panic seized his heart– was it that he had amnesia or something, and that was why nothing made sense?

"Tsunade-baachan was inaugurated as the Godaime, and you and Sasuke were released from the hospital, though Bushy Brow was still hurt from the exams," he looked anxiously at Kakashi's face, trying to glean some meaning from his impassive expression. "And after that Ero-sennin told me he was going to leave for a little while to gather some information. And then I went home and went to sleep and when I woke up, I was in a village a little outside of here."

Tsunade stood up, hair concealing her eyes. Naruto gulped as she walked around her desk and toward him. She reached out a hand and he flinched– but she only pulled at the string hanging around his neck, pulling it from under his shirt and revealing the slightly luminous green stone attached to it.

"You gave me this, yeah? Don't hit me," Naruto said instinctively.

She held the stone between her thumb and index finger, squeezing it slightly and frowning, as if listening to it.

"This was destroyed in the fight against Pein," she murmured. "No one should be able to replicate this chakra crystal."

"Baachan… h-hey!" Naruto said as she let go of the necklace and pulled his shirt up to where the ropes were tied around his chest.

"Shut up and focus your chakra," she demanded. "Mold it as if you were going to do a jutsu."

Muttering curses, Naruto did as he was told, and all the adults present craned to see the seal appear on Naruto's stomach.

"That's exactly how it looked before Sensei re-did the seal, when it nearly–" Kakashi gave a sharp intake of breath.

"Okay, is someone going to explain to me what the hell is going on?" Naruto said.

"Seriously. I don't get this," Kiba agreed, and Akamaru whined. "Is it Naruto or not?"

"Ibiki!" Tsunade said sharply, turning to the man. "Relate all of this to Shizune. I am going to send a small ANBU unit to scout each of the nearby villages for any recent Akatsuki sightings. First will be the village he arrived in. Where was it, Naruto?"

"Um, it wasn't one that I knew," Naruto said. "It was about a day north of here, but–"

"Shizune will bring in the readiest available combat squad for briefing and they'll be sent right away. The rest will be organized into smaller scouting units and scattered out. You will be in charge of anything that they find. Try to contact Anko's team for any updates on the enemy's movements. Normally they would tell us right away if anything happened, but if the enemy got to them first…"

"Understood," Ibiki bowed and then vanished.

"Something like this happens right after Kabuto and the remnants of the Akatsuki join forces. Who's to say the two are even acting separately anymore? Damn it, how can this be possible?" Tsunade stalked back and forth like a restless lioness.

"They had immortals among their group," Kakashi said in a low voice. "There is no way of knowing the extent of what they are capable of, and if their goal is to capture Naruto, it makes sense they would go for a less experienced, more vulnerable version, if they had a way of doing that…"

"If that's the case, then why not him as a young child, or even infant?" Tsunade said, just as quietly and intensely.

"I don't know," Kakashi admitted. "Maybe they can only detect hosts if they've already made contact with the bijuu's power, and Naruto didn't until after he became a ninja…"

"OI," Naruto said loudly. "Eek!" he squealed as Tsunade shot a dark glare at him.

"No matter what, you always cause us trouble, don't you?" she growled. Suddenly her face softened and the corners of her lips even tilted up a little. "I forgot how cute you were at this age." She ruffled his hair. "Look at those puppy-dog eyes, Kakashi. No wonder I couldn't resist coming back."

"Baachan," Naruto said, half questioning, half embarrassed.

"Naruto," Tsunade inclinded her head toward Kakashi, who nodded and began untying Naruto's ropes. "We're going to take your word for it for the time being and trust you a little, but you need to listen to us in return, alright?"

"Sure," Naruto said cautiously. "Does that mean you're going to tell me what's going on?"

"We don't really know what's going on, but yes," Kakashi finished untying and patted Naruto on the head. Naruto scowled.

"You can go, Kiba," Tsunade said. "But don't tell anyone about this for right now. If I'm not mistaken, you're supposed to be changing patrol shifts, aren't you?"

Kiba winced. "Yes, Tsunade-sama. C'mon, Akamaru." Akamaru yipped briefly and followed his master out.

That was really weird. Since when did _Kiba_ have responsibilities and actually listen to orders without complaint? Naruto's unease increased further.

Kakashi noticed him watching Kiba leave with confusion and coughed. "You're both way too thickheaded sometimes. Notice any differences with Kiba, Naruto?"

"Well, Akamaru got really huge all of a sudden," he scratched his head, "but Kiba acted like it was just my imagination or something."

Kakashi resisted the urge to do a facepalm. "You know," he said mock-conspiratorially behind his hand at Tsunade, "I guess I never noticed since it was so gradual and slight, but I think he _did_ get smarter over the years."

"Ahhhh, mou!" Naruto said shrilly, pulling at his hair in frustration.

"And a few decibels quieter, too," Kakashi winced.

"A few," Tsunade smiled, crossing her arms.

"You're doing this on purpose," Naruto accused, pointing at Tsunade and Kakashi. "First acting all scary like you're about to drag me in to be tortured, then making fun of me and talking in riddles!"

"Calm down, Naruto," Kakashi sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We couldn't help ourselves. Seeing you like this is really nostalgic. But the truth is, we're worried," His grip tightened. "It seems that someone brought you here through time. What I mean to say is, you're in the future."

"Eh?" Naruto said blankly.

Neither of them answered and there was silence for several moments. But Tsunade and Kakashi stared at him.

"What do you mean, future?" Naruto elaborated, looking back and forth between the two adults.

"What do you think?" Kakashi asked, but he was asking Tsunade. "He doesn't seem like he wants to go along with my crazy idea. Either this guy is really good or we're dealing with the real thing."

"We can figure that out later," Tsunade said. "Right now, whatever we believe, it comes down to the same thing. Whether it is really Naruto or an exceptionally good fake, we have to assume that Madara or Kabuto is involved. We don't know of anyone else that would have the power and motivation to do either."

"I believe he's real," Kakashi said. "It would be pointless for them to make a fake like this. It would make much more sense to try to switch him with an appropriately aged replacement, en route to the Lightning Country. On the other hand, if the enemy had the ability to pull a more inexperienced Naruto to our time, they would do that without hesitation."

"Don't… don't joke like that, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, smiling shakily. "That's impossible. You're still messing with me, aren't you?"

"Naruto, how else do you explain the village being destroyed?" Kakashi asked softly. "You said yourself the last thing you remember is right after Orochimaru's attack, and it wasn't nearly as bad as this."

"Yeah, but…" Naruto threw his arms out, eyes wide. "How? How could that be?"

"As I was saying, the only ones who have both the power and the motivation for this are the Akatsuki," Tsunade frowned. "Right now we're going to assume that it was their doing. You _are_ aware at this age that they are hunting for you, right?" she looked as if she was trying to remember.

"Yes…" Naruto said slowly. "Uchiha Itachi and a weird fish-looking guy tried to kidnap me when we were out trying to find you, Baachan… and Sasuke showed up but neither of us were any match. If Ero-sennin hadn't rescued us…" his eyes darkened at the memory. "Ero-sennin said that they were after… after the Kyuubi." Even though he had come to accept his burden, he still didn't like speaking about it out loud.

"If you understand that much, it will be easy for you to understand what is going on now, at least the basics," Tsunade put a hand on her hip. "Shortly after that time, the Akatsuki seemed to quiet down and leave you alone for a while. We aren't entirely sure why, except that you did travel with Jiraiya for a long time and that probably had some influence. But recently, they have been going after you actively again." She bit her lip, worry clear on her face. "That is why they may have brought you here, to try to capture you at a younger age. But that is just a wild guess. We can't actually say until we know more."

"They're still after me… wait, is that why they destroyed the village?" Naruto croaked. "To get to me?"

Tsunade hesitated, then nodded.

"Please don't start blaming yourself for that now," Kakashi said, knowingly but a little exasperatedly. "The you in this timeline has already done that enough."

"But… how am I still _alive_ after that? From what I saw, it looked like someone dropped a huge bomb on this place. When did they invade? How many people died?" he buried his face in his hands. "I didn't think all of that I saw out there was _my_ fault."

"Fortunately, you weren't in the village at the time," Tsunade said. "Naruto," she added tenderly, stooping down in front of his chair to look him in the face, "Because of you, the village wasn't wiped out entirely–"

"I'm not sure what else you'd call that–"

"Idiot!" Tsunade cut him off. "A village is more than buildings! It's more than land! A few years ago, we didn't fully understand how powerful Akatsuki was. What happened here wasn't an invasion. All of the destruction was done by a single shinobi. And you confronted him and made him back down. He had god-like powers of destruction and revival. He killed half the village and then turned around and sacrificed his own life to bring them all back, all because of you!"

Naruto stared at her, eyes wide. "But… wait. Am I really that strong? The villagers I met this morning were saying the same thing."

"You didn't defeat him with your fists," Naruto turned to look at Kakashi, who eye-smiled at him. "Though you didn't do half bad with those, either." He opened his eye and looked very serious. "I was one of the ones he had to bring back. You saved my life."

"Wait…" Naruto's wide eyes fixed on him, trembling. "You mean you _died_, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Maa," Kakashi waved a hand, "That is all in the past now, for me at least, so don't worry about it–" he was cut off as Naruto tackled him.

"Stupid sensei! How can you say that like it doesn't matter? And why did you do something stupid and get killed in the first place!" Kakashi was slightly surprised at the moisture shining in the boy's eyes. "It was bad enough when you got put into a coma…"

Kakashi shuddered and gently pried Naruto off of him. "Trust me, Naruto, that time was way worse. I'd take death over that kind of torture again any day. Besides, it worked out. Ne? I'm still here."

"I think that's enough for now, Kakashi," Tsunade said warningly. "It's probably not a good idea to tell him too much about things that have happened, especially not until we understand what this is. If he's really from the past, it could alter things if he knows what happens. Besides, I get the feeling there are quite a few things about the future that he would not like to hear."

"Like what?" Naruto said immediately, glancing at her suspiciously.

"Hokage-sama is right," Kakashi rested his hand on Naruto's head. "Right now we need to figure out what we are going to do with you. Honestly, it's lucky you managed to make it back to the village before the Akatsuki or whoever did this found you."

"Lucky… or it could be intentional," Tsunade considered, "we can't let our guard down." She sighed heavily. "Great. Now we have two Narutos to hide instead of one. Just when I thought this job couldn't get any harder."

"Well if it's true, hopefully this one will be a little more apt to listen to us, since he at least realizes he can't take on Akatsuki by himself," Kakashi said, poking Naruto's forehead.

Naruto scowled and rubbed his forehead. "Quit messing with me! Sheesh. I didn't realize you were this touchy-feely. Or are you even more of a pervert in the future?"

"Sorry, sorry," Kakashi held up his hands pacifyingly. "You're just like a cute younger-brother version of the Naruto that we know now, so it's difficult. I bet Tsunade-sama's just dying to pinch your cheeks."

Naruto glanced suspiciously at her again and she looked away, neither confirming nor denying it.

"Ahem," Tsunade coughed,"I'm sorry, Naruto, but since we aren't sure whether or not this is an enemy trap, you're going to have to stick with Kakashi and stay out of sight for a while. You do understand that, right?" she leveled her amber eyes at him. "The only way we can remain convinced you aren't an enemy is to have your cooperation."

Naruto was thrown by how serious she sounded suddenly. "I… I understand."

"He'll have to stay in the village until we figure out something else. There's too much to do with the cleanup and preparations to figure out a plan right now," she said in a clipped voice to Kakashi, "I think for the time being we need to keep it to ourselves that he's here, even within the village. I don't think it would be unbelievable to anyone in Konoha at this point, after we've seen what Akatsuki can do. But the less chance the enemy has of knowing where he is, the better. If it does turn out to be true, though…" she frowned. "We'll have no choice but to tell the other Kage, at least. They wouldn't appreciate it if they found out I was hiding something like this if it directly has to do with the enemy's plans. For now, we have some leeway because we don't know exactly what is going on."

"The other Kage?" Naruto said, puzzled. "You mean the Kage of other Hidden Villages? But why?"

"Enough," Tsunade said. She bent down in front of Naruto again and did a series of handseals before poking him in the forehead, eliciting a small half-growl from him. "Get over it. I've placed one of my specialty henge on you, so it should work until I choose to take it off of you, or if your chakra can't maintain it. Considering your ridiculous reserves even at this age, I don't think that will be a problem."

Naruto felt of his face. He hoped that was the case, since his chakra had almost entirely returned. "What did you do?"

Tsunade pulled out a compact mirror from her sleeve and handed it to him. "I just made you look like a generic Genin for the moment. It's not a permanent solution, like I said, but it'll suffice for moving you right now."

Naruto peered at himself in the mirror. Generic was right. He had plain brown eyes and hair; longish hair that was tied back, and a hitai-ate draped around his neck. He wore a dark green square-necked tunic that closed with two ties on his right side, with standard pants and sandals. Not even a speck of orange anywhere.

"Where am I going?" he asked nervously.

"Mm…" Tsunade straightened up and put the mirror back in her sleeve. "Well, I have no idea as far as the long run. But for right now, Kakashi will take you to your room, since it's vacant since this morning. You may have noticed that our housing is… limited right now. And Kakashi is next door to you."

"Many ninja unaffiliated with any of the major clans have been put in boarding houses like this," Kakashi explained when Naruto looked at him in surprise. "Construction is moving along very quickly, though, so we won't be in this awkward situation forever."

"I'm counting on you, Kakashi. Naruto," Tsunade added, and Naruto looked at her. "I promise I won't forget about you being there, so try to _stay put_ and out of sight, please?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "I'll try, but you know, Baachan, when I get into trouble I don't usually mean to do it…"

Tsunade's eyes flashed dangerously. "Well _this_ time, try _harder_ than usual. Kakashi," she commanded, and Kakashi nodded.

"Time to go," he said. He pulled out an unfamiliar, green-covered Icha Icha volume and slouched casually toward the door.

Naruto paced after him until he caught up. "You're _still_ obsessed with those perverted books, Kakashi-sensei?"

…

**Just some beginning-of-story care and maintenance. (Future A/N's won't be this lengthy, I promise)**

**1. I usually follow whatever canon suits my purpose at the time, and in this chapter it's the anime one where Sasuke is released from the hospital and he and Naruto don't have their epic Chidori/Rasengan clash on top of the hospital until after that one batch of fillers. I usually prefer the manga canon (especially earlier on, since I skipped all the fillers in the original anime), but I did not want Naruto to be aware of how **_**much**_** something was not right with his friend, for reasons that will be obvious to you very soon if they aren't already.**

**2. ****I have a lot of this planned out, but please do tell me if there is anything you'd love to see! This story is going to be pretty long. As sort of an experiment, at the beginning I will mostly be limiting things to Naruto's POV. I will widen the perspective as time goes on in order to reveal more things, but it's more challenging to do it this way since plenty of people will be trying to hide things from him. Normally in a fic like this I would dedicate a lot more time to the reactions of those around him and what they say when he's not around, but (hopefully, since it's the whole point of the experiment) I can show what others are thinking/feeling in more subtle ways. If it seems explanations are missing, chances are it's intentional and those things will be shown at the right moment.**

**You can view the posting schedule for this story on my profile, as well as weekly progress updates on whatever chapter I'm currently on (I'm writing a little in advance).**

**See you next time!**


	2. Introduction Arc: Part II

**Posted (10/12/13)**

******A/N: Random FYI I didn't mention before: I'm using 'Land of' and 'Country' interchangeably in this fic (e.g. Land of Wind/Wind Country) depending on whatever I think sounds best in the context. The same goes for Japanese vs. translations (Suna/Sand, Konoha/Leaf, etc). This may also be the case with other specific terms and jutsu. If it bothers you… at least you can find comfort in the fact that it's an intentional editorial choice? xP**

* * *

_Like I can grasp it, like it's approachable, the spiral staircase continues on/ "The end" feels like it's drifting off, always on the look out for an excuse/ This is how "real" is/ There's really no need/ To speak of the obvious/ It's still resounding to this day, that voice yelling, "Shut up!"/ I can't help but think it'll be a nice place to curl up in if I'm second-rate._

* * *

**2: Introduction Arc: Part II**

Even though Naruto couldn't stop himself from looking all around as they walked through the village, he tried his best to keep the agitation off of his face in order to maintain at least _some _semblance of acting natural. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that he had gone backwards in time, not forward. He doubted that the village had looked like this since the very earliest days of the Shodai Hokage.

It hurt to know what lay in store for his beloved home, and what was worse, all because of _him_. Or rather, the thing he had inside of him. It was the complete opposite of what he wanted; of the rosy thoughts he had had the previous day about being the village's underappreciated but gracious benefactor. How could he – the him of the future – have allowed things to stray so far from that?

They emerged out on a wide dirt thoroughfare that seemed to go right through the center of the rebuilt settlement. Naruto's eyes darted back and forth, apprehensive but curious. The biggest assurance that the village's destruction had not come with massive casualties was that there were people _everywhere_. The street was as busy as a hive.

He could tell that it had been long enough since the attack for the initial shock to wear off for the villagers. When he looked around, he saw everyone at work and generally happy, with shinobi and civilians and outside contractors working side-by-side. As Kakashi said, things seemed to be moving along swiftly and efficiently. It reminded Naruto very much of the reality that he had just left, except on a much grander scale. It was baffling, and the sense of pride he had felt before in Konoha's strength came back to him as he looked all around, even though it was muted somewhat by the disbelief and anger that someone would _do_ this.

"Where is everyone staying?" Naruto asked. "There's no way there are enough houses yet for this many people, right?"

"Hm?" Kakashi said, not looking up from his book. "Well, most of the contracted workers are living in tents, and the clans have to rough it with everybody in a single building until they can recover their old grounds. Shinobi families with underage children and many civilians are still living in the evacuation shelter in the mountain. Most other active shinobi, like us, are out here in housing blocks grouped according to unit. Teams are in the same place whenever possible so they can react quickly if necessary. It's convenience over comfort for everybody," he explained.

"Oh," Naruto said.

He knew one thing. If he made it back to his own time, this would _never_ happen. Even if he had to leave the village. He could go into hiding somewhere. Or… try to go find the Akatsuki. Maybe he'd be able to put at least a scratch on them. And if they killed him… at least they wouldn't be hunting him down and destroying his village in the process. He vowed right then and there to use any means necessary to find out the details and make it back to stop this from happening. Naruto clutched at the front of his tunic, over where the seal was hidden, concealed by the henge. Kakashi looked down at him from the corner of his eye but did not comment.

"Here we are," he said lightly. They had arrived at a row of identical white houses with green tiled roofs and wood trimming. He entered one through a plain-looking wooden door and Naruto followed.

To the left was a room filled with low tables, where a few shinobi were lounging around, but only a few. Naruto supposed most were out working this time of the day. They mounted a narrow wooden staircase.

"A friend of mine made this particular block of houses. It was one of the first," Kakashi commented. "You know him too, in this time. He left with you from this time, Gai, and some others this morning."

Naruto didn't answer. He seemed to still be deep in thought.

"Hm," Kakashi pondered. "I wonder if the timing is a coincidence. The whole purpose of sending you to the Land of Lightning, after all, was to make you untraceable so that the Akatsuki couldn't find you. Maybe, instead of going to find you, someone made you come to them."

Naruto looked up sharply as they stepped out onto the second floor. "Are you saying, they probably already know that I'm here?"

Kakashi shrugged. "You said you landed outside of here, but unless whoever brought you here made a mistake… they had to know you wouldn't stay put, but try to get to Konoha as soon as possible."

"But… but then…" his eyes were wide and he grasped at the front of his tunic again. "Why am I still here? The village will be in danger again–"

"That's why you're disguised," Kakashi poked him in the forehead again, if for no other reason than to wipe the frantic expression off of his face. "And I won't say that you will be able to stay here indefinitely, but…" he rested his hand on a doorknob and turned to look at Naruto seriously. "I think you might be misunderstanding something. We didn't send you off because we were worried about the _village's_ safety. After all, there isn't much to speak of it left right now, and our enemy has bigger goals than picking on a beat-up ruin. It was done to protect _you_."

"To protect… me?"

He motioned into the room and Naruto walked in front of him.

"How do I put this…" Kakashi said, "It's less along the lines of 'if you're here, the Akatsuki will come here' and more along the lines of, 'if you are here, it will be easier for the Akatsuki to find you."

"Huh? What's the difference…?"

"Perspective," Kakashi said enigmatically, and Naruto scrunched up his face uncomprehendingly. "A lot has changed since you were just a cute little 12-year-old Genin."

Naruto looked around his room slowly, almost surreptitiously, remembering suddenly that his other, _older_ self had lived in there up until that morning. It was a very creepy feeling, yet strangely comforting at the same time.

The room was extremely basic and mostly bare, but there were one or two items he recognized. Most likely, that was all that was left from his home after the destruction of the village. There was an unfamiliar trunk, a futon folded up neatly beside it, and a cover folded up on top of that, yellow with white spirals all over it. He walked over to a small wooden bookshelf by the window (he was pretty sure he recognized), and slow smile came over his face as he picked up the picture frame sitting there. It was the familiar photo of Team 7.

"So then, how old _am_ I now?" he set the frame down and turned to Kakashi excitedly. "How much time has it been? I'm strong, right?" He clenched his fists and gave a face-splitting grin, savoring the thought. "I bet I have some _incredible _jutsu by now! Hehehehe. Hey, Kakashi-sensei!"

"You are sixteen," Kakashi said calmly, keeping his nose buried in his book. "And… I'd say you get by."

"Kakashi-senseiii," Naruto managed to bring some of his natural whine into the neutral voice he'd adopted along with the henge, "Show me a jutsu I can do in this time. I know you've probably copied them all. Come oooon."

"Hm," Kakashi murmured vaguely.

"Obviously, I'm not Hokage yet, but…" Naruto rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "If I can take on someone from _Akatsuki_, I at least have to be a jounin by now!"

Kakashi snickered.

"_What?_" Naruto huffed. "Surely it can't hurt to at least tell me something like that! Or…" his eyes lit up, "Or, what about Sasuke and Sakura-chan? And everyone else? Oh, wait, wait," Naruto held up his hands in a halting gesture, not noticing how Kakashi's posture stiffened slightly, "did I pass the Chuunin exams the first time? Or at least before Kiba did? Man, if I had known, I would have asked him… oh, he'd be _so_ mad… no, wait!" Naruto grasped at his hair in horrified realization, and Kakashi just watched him blankly. "Why am I worried about rankings when the village was just attacked? Kakashi-sensei, did everyone – is everyone–"

He turned his suddenly fearful eyes on Kakashi, realizing that even though he had seen a lot of people out there, he hadn't seen anyone he recognized. Kakashi sighed and put _Icha Icha Tactics_ back in his pocket.

"No significant casualties resulted from the village's destruction," he said carefully. "The results _would _have been catastrophic… but as you heard, the attacker was an insanely powerful shinobi who was persuaded to reverse the loss of life that he had caused, at the cost of his own life."

Naruto gave a little uneasy laugh. "That sounds… crazy."

Kakashi shrugged. "It was. But that's the kind of enemy Akatsuki is. There aren't many of them left now, but the ones that are, are just as unbelievable as that one. The ones _really_ pulling the strings are always stronger than the ones that show themselves in the beginning."

"But, everyone made it through the attack," Naruto sighed in relief. "At least… I don't have to worry about being responsible for my friends getting hurt."

"Yes, everyone made it through the attack," Kakashi said with a frown, "That may be true, but, being here, you should really…" he rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, "I agree with Tsunade-sama that we should be careful about what things you know, but I think it's inevitable that the longer you are here, the more you'll be able to piece things together whether we want you to or not. Some of those things… well. Situations haven't always turned out as nicely as this one did, Naruto."

Naruto lowered his gaze and bit his lip. "I know."

"You do?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

Naruto closed his eyes and nodded. "I've seen enough of our world to know that bad, senseless things happen to people who don't deserve it. People hurt one another. Bushy-brow didn't deserve to have his arm and leg crushed by Gaara, and Gaara didn't deserve to be shunned by the Sand, but the Sand didn't deserve to be fooled by Orochimaru, either. Even Zabuza and Haku didn't really deserve to die, and you _know_ the Sandaime didn't," he opened his eyes and slowly looked up at his teacher. "It scares me to think that stuff like what I've already seen has continued to happen all the way until now, but… I can't honestly expect it to have not. It's why I've continued to get stronger, in order to protect what I can, right? This time, I even managed to prevent anyone dying," he grinned suddenly, "Whatever else happened, I guess I didn't grow up too badly!"

Kakashi stared blankly at him for a long time. Then, with a soft chuckle, he stepped forward and placed a hand on top of Naruto's head. "Well, what do you know. Maybe we should have all given you a little more credit a long time ago."

"Eh?" Naruto swatted the hand and ducked, glaring at Kakashi suspiciously.

"Well anyway, I need to go see if Gai has responded back yet. We can't even have a basic grasp on this situation until we confirm whether the you of this time is still around, or if something happened to him."

"Can't I–"

"_You_ stay here," Kakashi said firmly, holding up his hand as Naruto stepped forward. "I didn't bring you here just to turn around and take you back. The less you see right now, the better, at least until it's allowed. I will tell you what we find out, unless there's a really really good reason for me not to, in which case I will at least tell you that I can't tell you." He smiled cheekily.

Naruto grumbled and plopped down on the floor in front of a low wooden table. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

Kakashi sighed. "It would be difficult for anyone to stay inside knowing they've arrived in their own future, but… just try to bear with it at least until I go find out something. If you get hungry, I'm sure you can find some ramen stashed around here somewhere if you look hard enough. Other than that, just find a way to _quietly_ amuse yourself… ah!" he suddenly appeared crouched on top of the table, holding up _Icha Icha Tactics_ in Naruto's face. "Here. You wouldn't have read this one yet!"

"No thanks," Naruto said resoundingly, crossing his arms.

Kakashi pouted. "Here I was being really generous, too. Ah well," he buried his nose in the book and stood, walking off the table nonchalantly and toward the door, "You'll read it someday anyway."

Naruto cast him a horrified look. "What?"

Kakashi paused and turned slightly to look back at him. It was difficult to tell with the mask, but he may have been smirking. "After all, you're the one that gave me this."

"Noooo, don't tell me that I grow up to be a pervert that reads_ Icha Icha_…" Naruto buried his face in his hands.

"The inventor of the Oiroke no Jutsu really has no place saying that," Kakashi said lightly before stepping out into the hall. "Later! Be good now!" he raised a hand in a lazy wave before closing the door behind him.

Naruto groaned and flopped practically face-first down on the table. He sat with his chin on the table staring blankly at the wall for several minutes. Now that he was listening, he could hear indistinct voices from somewhere below and the sounds of distant hammering and sawing coming from out in the street.

"Just sit around? _You_ try sitting still in a situation like this, jerk." Naruto muttered, but with no real vehemence. He'd rarely felt so far out of his depth before. The last time had been, well… the first time the Akatsuki had come for him. He suppressed a shudder as remembered opening the door to Uchiha Itachi, looking down at him like an ant with his murderous red eyes as if he could rip all the limbs from his body just by looking at him. He probably could have.

_Pull it together_. Naruto commanded himself, sitting up with a forceful shake of his head. It wasn't time to be afraid when nothing had happened to him to yet. Well, aside from the whole absurd time travel thing. He needed to keep it together to take advantage of this opportunity and learn as much as he could, whether anyone was going to help him or not.

Naruto went to the window and looked out at the street and the very open skyline, previously dominated by the sprawling, cheerful buildings he was used to in the past. The enemy had the power to do _this_. One shinobi alone. Admittedly, he'd heard of people that strong before. It was pretty much a given that all the Hokage – and the Kage of other lands as well, he supposed – could take on whole armies or defend the hidden villages all on their own. The Shodai Hokage in particular had a reputation for being able to change the face of the landscape itself when he fought. And Naruto had been exposed personally to touches and glimpses of the capabilities of ridiculously powerful ninja, like the Sannin and the Sandaime Hokage, and the brief encounter with the Akatsuki.

For _him_ to face someone like that _by himself_ like everyone said; maybe not on completely equal terms but still, survive and even… win? It wasn't like he didn't expect to get stronger. He had plenty of confidence in himself outwardly (as anyone who had ever met him knew, since he declared his intention to become Hokage to almost everyone) and inwardly, he was already proud of his abilities and knew they could only get even better. But still… he could not wrap his head around it. As messed up as some things were, that part was pretty damn awesome.

He turned and peered curiously around at his room again. There was nothing in it to suggest that its occupant had the power to go toe-to-toe with an S-rank missing-nin. There really wasn't much of anything in it at all. Though, he couldn't really expect it to have as much personality as the apartment he'd lived in most of his life. Just four plain wooden walls, and a small alcove with a sink. The toilets and bathing areas were probably communal.

Naruto got up from the table and crouched curiously in front of the bookshelf, probably the only scrap of personality the room had. He definitely recognized it as a piece from his old room, as it was carved with various boredom-induced doodles and lines. He tried to imagine what it would be like to pick through the ruins of his home to find anything salvageable. Did it hurt? It was impossible to guess his future self's mindset at that point. It wasn't like he cared overmuch for his crappy apartment, and the fact that everyone was alive would mean a lot more. But still, everything that he knew was _destroyed._

He ran a finger over the few books that the little bookcase held, looking for clues. He wondered if it could be considered snooping if it was all technically his stuff.

To his dismay, he found several volumes of _Icha Icha_, including the one Kakashi had shown him, _Tactics_. Why had he offered to lend his, if Naruto already owned it? Just to get on his nerves? …Most likely. Looking closer, he saw that their spines looked new and unscuffed, and their pages were crisp and stiff. It didn't look like _these_ particular copies had ever been read, at least, and he was beginning to suspect that Kakashi had just been pulling his leg about the whole thing. Most likely, he or Jiraiya had given the whole set to Naruto as a gift once in order to try to corrupt him. Why had he thought it was a good idea to trust _Kakashi's _word about his future preferences? Damn it.

Naruto's hand landed on a small brown-covered book that looked much more broken in than the others. He curiously pulled it out to look at the cover. _The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi._ Now that sounded like the kind of story he could like, and judging by its well-worn edges, he did. Standing, Naruto lay it down by Team 7's picture for later and turned to the wooden trunk. He thought it might be locked, but it wasn't.

"Excuse me," he mumbled as he opened the trunk, though he was still undecided about whether this could be considered snooping. He was delighted to find several stacks of his favorite instant ramen on the left side and clothes folded up on the right.

"Whoa," Naruto said, holding up a mesh armor shirt that was several sizes too big for him. Below that there were a few T-shirts much like the one he wore underneath the henge, except they were bigger. Below that he found a pair of standard black ninja pants and he hopped up excitedly to hold them up to his waist. The hems trailed over his feet and he snickered gleefully, holding them at arms-length again to try to calculate how much height age would grant him.

A polite knock came on the door and Naruto scrambled, nearly got tangled on his own feet somehow instinctively trying to stuff everything back in the trunk, realized that was stupid, finally was able to stand and _not _fall, then stood very still. His heart was thumping very fast.

"Naruto, are you there?" a soft, neutral male voice came from behind the door.

Naruto paused for a moment but the visitor seemed content to wait for a reply and not elaborate at all on why he was visiting.

What to do? The smartest thing would probably be not to answer and just wait for the person to decide he wasn't home and go away… after all, if he hadn't come here, that's exactly what would have happened.

_But, _he was transformed and no one would be able to tell it was him, so what would be the harm in seeing who was at the door? It was obviously someone that knew him, and that made Naruto curious.

But what if it was someone that knew him that wanted to _capture_ him? The shiver-inducing image of Uchiha Itachi standing over him passed through his mind again. But surely someone after him wouldn't just walk up to his door when they were in the middle of the village?

"I heard you in there," the calm voice came again. "Are you hiding from Sakura for some reason? Should I pretend that I did not hear you? If yes, knock once."

An expectant silence followed.

"Oh, right; if no, let me in."

Another silence followed.

Naruto's eye twitched. How the hell was he supposed to resist that? Besides, they already knew he was there, so it would be better to let the person in than to raise suspicions. Yes.

Squashing down his doubts, Naruto walked over to the door and opened it.

His visitor was a boy in his mid-teens with jet black hair and eyes and unnaturally pale skin. He wore a purple long sleeved button-up shirt, with matching purple pants and black sandals. He was carrying what looked like a spiral notebook. Naruto could not see a headband, so he couldn't tell if the boy was a shinobi or not. The only thing he was absolutely certain of was that he had never seen this person in his life.

If the boy was surprised or abashed that he had been talking through the door to the wrong person, he didn't show it. He just looked down at Naruto with his head tilted slightly to the side.

"Oh, excuse me," he said mildly. "I thought this was my teammate's room."

"Teammate?" Naruto echoed.

"Yes; Uzumaki Naruto of Team Kakashi, under the command of Hatake Kakashi. I was under the impression these were his living quarters." The boy's voice never seemed to vary in tone, but kept the same light, vaguely pleasant intonation throughout. It wasn't a monotone, exactly, but it was the same type of artificial lightness one found in instructional videos and public announcements. It was damned creepy.

"He… he left on a mission earlier this morning," Naruto said, trying to act normal. "Um, the Hokage is letting me stay here temporarily while some more apartments are being built."

He smiled resolutely through feebleness of his own excuse, and the other boy seemed to accept it.

"I suppose that makes us neighbors then, if only temporarily. My name is Sai," he said with a weird smile that didn't look right on his face. He held out a hand. "It's nice to meet you…" he paused, looking at Naruto very intently.

_Crap, I haven't thought up a fake name or anything!_ Naruto thought frantically. _Now he's waiting for me to say something!_

"…Stupidface," Sai said finally, and he gave his weird smile again. "I hope that we can be good friends!"

A silence fell. If one listened closely enough, they could hear the snap of self-control breaking.

"_What_ did you call me?" Naruto burst out, baring a fist. "It's no more stupid than yours, with that creepy-ass smile you've got! What's your problem?"

Sai laughed sheepishly, which made him seem a little more human, but only made Naruto feel somewhat wrong-footed.

"No good, huh?" he glanced at Naruto and then away, scratching his cheek. "Maybe Naruto and Sakura were right. I should probably stop trying to give people nicknames."

"Eh?" Now Naruto wasn't sure whether to be angry or not. "Well whatever it was they told you, I'm sure I agree with them."

Sai dipped his head. "Sorry to bother you," he made as if to leave.

"Wait, um…" Naruto started. Here was a person that didn't know they weren't supposed to tell him anything. If there was any way to get some information out of him…

"Yes?" Sai said curiously.

"Um… if you wanted to leave him a message, I could pass it on… if I see him, I mean. I don't know when he's coming back," Naruto said.

"It's nothing really important," Sai said. "I was just going to ask him about yesterday when he disappeared from the ramen shop and everyone started panicking. I only just heard about it, but I'm sure Sakura knows what happened, so I'll just ask her."

"Where is she?" Naruto asked before he could stop himself. He winced internally, hoping it wasn't too odd of a question.

"She's been spending the majority of her time with the Medical Corps lately, though she's probably doing work for Hokage-sama this time of day," Sai said. "Do you know her?"

"Not… not really," Naruto said cagily. "I mean, I know _of_ her, I know who she is, but she doesn't know me."

Sai stared at him for a while. He may have been surprised– his eyes were just a fraction wider, though it was hard to tell– but then the corners of his lips lilted slightly. It was a much fainter but much nicer smile than before.

"Oh. Is this what they call having a boyhood crush? I read about that in here," Sai said cheerfully, pulling a book out of his pocket– and for one horrible second Naruto thought it was _Icha Icha_– but it was titled _Making and Keeping Long-term Relationships_. "Although, I'm not sure if she'd be interested in a puny little shrimp like you–" (Naruto's eyebrow twitched; this guy seemed to have a knack for saying inflammatory things in the most pleasant of voices) "–but at least, you're pretty brave for liking someone scary like her."

"Forget I said anything about it," Naruto said loudly.

"Already failing at keeping quiet, I see," Kakashi said cheerfully, appearing behind Sai's shoulder.

"Did you find out something?" Naruto asked instantly.

Kakashi gave him his infamous dead-eye look. "You do realize that there's almost no chance the message has even reached them yet, right? We only sent it a couple of hours ago."

"Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that?" Naruto grated. "I was just going by what you said! What were you doing, then?"

"Oh, nothing," Kakashi said lazily. "Just got the boss to spring you from your prison cell. You're welcome."

"What? Really? So wait, that means I _don't_ have to stay cooped up in here? How did you manage that?"

"Um…" Sai shuffled to the side to get out from in between Kakashi and Naruto. "I'll just… go…"

"Wait," Kakashi caught his arm, "I need to tell you about your new mission. Come in here for a minute."

Looking bemused, Sai allowed himself to be led into the room and Kakashi shut the door behind them. The Copy-nin settled down at the table and Sai and Naruto followed his lead.

"I'll make this quick," Kakashi started, "Right now I'm heading out in the second wave with my ninken to help with the scouting. In the meantime, we think that it's safe within the village's boundaries – or at least, it's no safer in this room than any other place in the village. Actually, I think Tsunade-sama was expecting me just now. I didn't even have to beg to be sent out," he smiled, "At any rate, we still need to be very cautious until the investigation is complete, even if there is no particular point in keeping you in here specifically."

"I don't understand, Kakashi-sensei," Sai said.

"I'm putting you on the same protection mission I have," Kakashi said, "It will only be C-rank in terms of difficulty– I hope– but it's A-rank or higher in terms of importance to the village and the level of danger _if_ any shows up at all. The two of you need to stick together like glue until I get back."

Sai looked at Naruto and then back at Kakashi. "I'm sorry, I still do not understand. I don't think an A-rank is any place for a genin, even if it is easy for the rank."

"He's not going on the mission with you. He _is_ the mission."

"I don't really need a babysitter, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto growled. "Who is this guy, anyway? He acts like he's from our class but I don't remember him at all. Is he really on our team?"

"It's a long story, Naruto. Can we just focus here? You're going to have to have someone competent with you if you're going to be allowed any freedom at all. Get over it."

"Naruto?" Sai said confusedly, staring at Naruto.

"Listen up. And don't interrupt me again, squirt," Kakashi added with a pointed look at Naruto. "Sai, I don't have time to go into the 'why's and 'how's– we don't know all of them anyway– so you're going to have to just go along with it for now. This kid is Naruto," he gestured at Naruto, "Tsunade put a henge on him. The reason for that, and the reason why he doesn't know who you are, is because he isn't the Naruto you know. Somehow, someone– maybe using some kind of summoning or space-time ninjutsu we don't know about– brought him from the past into our time. He is Naruto from four years ago."

Sai's eyes were definitely noticeably wider this time. "That's…" he looked at Naruto.

"Very bad," Kakashi supplied. "Obviously, no one would do something like that without a reason. Fortunately, it seems that they didn't have very good control over where they brought him, because he ended up some distance from the village and still managed to get here without being attacked."

"Unless that was their intention," Sai pointed out.

"Right," Kakashi sighed, "It's risky, but it's probably even riskier for him to be outside of the village. At least here, there are lots of other shinobi around, and he can blend in with the henge. But since neither of us really believe Naruto would ever be content with staying put here, I need you to stay beside him while I'm gone helping with the investigation," Kakashi's eye crinkled, "We're probably going to be yelled at once the council finds out, but fortunately, you're a good choice for this mission. You can quickly send information or an SOS to the Hokage if necessary. I will also leave Pakkun with you. I'll reverse-summon him if we find anything out there." Kakashi bit his thumb and went through some seals. "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

A pop and a puff of smoke revealed the diminutive pug sitting attentively on the table where Kakashi had slammed his hand down.

"Leave it to me, I'll keep an eye on them," Pakkun said, saluting with a paw.

"Pakkun!" Naruto said happily. "You haven't changed a bit!"

Pakkun looked over his shoulder at Naruto, "You have, though. Are you really that short or is it just the henge? I don't remember being able to stand eye-to-eye with you."

"That's–! I'm sitting down, and you're on the table!" Naruto jumped up to demonstrate he was still, at least, taller than a dog.

Sai laughed. Naruto shot him a disgruntled look, but didn't retort. It would have been easier to react if the laugh had been distinctly mocking, but it wasn't. It was genuine and warm.

"No, you actually haven't changed all that much," Sai said. "Actually, I'm surprised I didn't figure out who you are sooner."

Well that was discomforting, coming from a complete stranger.

"Though I wonder if at a younger age, you have even less of a–"

"Okay," Kakashi cut in neatly, "Another thing, Sai, is that while this isn't exactly a secret, we want to keep it quiet until a decision about it can be made by the Hokage and the Council. That is also why you're a good fit for this. I doubt it will be necessary, but if anyone asks, he's a survivor from Root that you're mentoring."

"Ah," Sai gave an understanding nod, but Naruto was completely lost. "That is good; it won't be necessary to explain his lack of a background then. The knowledge of most of our true identities died along with Danzou-sama, after all."

"Yes, and it's caused quite a bit of headache trying to assimilate them into the regular forces, so it's a good cover. Naruto's personality doesn't exactly fit that, but it's all just for the time being anyway, while the higher-ups have their meeting." Kakashi stood up, "By the way, Naruto, before you go out, I have to warn you…"

Naruto sighed. "I'll behave. And I won't run off. I just want to see things and help the village if I can. Even I can tell this isn't a good time to be pulling jokes."

"Ah, not that exactly… though you're right. No, what I was going to say was that not everyone will be fooled by your transformation. The henge didn't change your smell, so anyone with a sharp nose will suspect something. And there might be others that are sensor-types or just clever enough to figure it out."

Naruto scratched his head. Then what was the point?

"But those who are good enough to figure it out will also be clever enough to play along with it," Kakashi continued. "We're going to have to explain about you to the village at some point if this goes on anyway, but everyone knows what is at stake when it comes to you and the Akatsuki. More importantly, you need to try to act normal even if you see or hear something that surprises you. Can you do that?"

Naruto nodded cautiously.

"I really mean it," Kakashi said dryly. "You need to stay calm no matter what or we'll have no choice but to hide you in an underground bunker until the Akatsuki go away. And if Sai tells you to run, or stay out of a fight, you need to do that without complaining."

"You're making me nervous, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said with a quavering laugh. "Is it going to be that risky just to walk around a little bit?"

"Probably not," Kakashi allowed, "but capturing you is a major objective of the Akatsuki and you need to not draw attention to yourself, which you may find more difficult than you think seeing as how not only the village, but all the people in it are different from what you know. And if they attack the village again in the state we are in, there's a good chance that they'll succeed in taking you." He eye-smiled but his words still gave Naruto a chill.

"Okay, okay, I get it," he mumbled.

"Great. We're not going to be able to keep you in the dark about everything, but… Sai, try to keep him away from anything that's a little too big to be dealing with right now. He says that he left the night of Tsunade's inauguration, before…" Kakashi didn't finish the sentence, but his hand gave a strange deliberate twitch, like a hand sign, only it wasn't a ninjutsu one that he recognized. Naruto barely caught it, but Sai looked very grave and nodded.

"Understood," he said.

"Be good and stay out of trouble, you three. Later!" and Kakashi disappeared with a puff of smoke.

"Kage bunshin," Sai said, "They must have already left."

"Yep," Pakkun said. "They were ready to go as soon as Kakashi showed up. He didn't even have to give Hokage-sama his puppy-dog look to convince her. They're both so soft on the brat."

Feeling somewhat awkward and not knowing what to do with his hands, Naruto walked over to the trunk and started putting away the clothes he'd pulled out.

"So…" he started slowly, "Why are they sending out a search right now? I mean, what are they looking for?"

Sai watched him impassively, head tilted slightly. "It's probably safe to assume that if someone deliberately brought you here, they would be looking for you. If that person knows where you ended up, they are probably heading there now. If we send forces there, then there is a possibility of capturing them."

Naruto snapped the trunk closed and stood up fully to frown at Sai.

"What?" Sai said lightly.

"I'm sorry, I really can't figure you out," Naruto scratched his head. "Are we… friends? In this time, I mean."

"We're comrades."

"We're comrades but we're not friends?" Naruto looked unimpressed.

"Mm…" Sai shifted uncomfortably. "It's not that. I'm just not exactly sure how the whole friendship thing works. If it makes you feel any better, though, I think that the older you would probably say that we are friends. I've been reading up on it," he tapped his pocket, "but I've pretty much come to the conclusion that it will just take time to figure out."

"Oh," Naruto said. "See, this whole time I've been trying to imagine – figure out what kind of person I am in the future. Not that I mind having more friends, but you're kind of weird."

"That, coming from you?" Pakkun said. "Relax, Naruto. He's one of us."

Sai shrugged and laid his notebook flat on the table, smoothing the cover. "Well, back when we first met, I thought it would be easier to interact with people if I put on an act that kept people from caring about me. So actually, you hated me," he started absently flipping through his notebook. Now that it was open, Naruto could see that it was actually a sketchpad, and he walked over to get a closer look. Sai paused on a pastel drawing that didn't look like much of anything, just a swirling mass of different colors. He tapped it with his finger and smiled. "Sakura punched me really good in the face once."

Naruto winced. "Yeah, I know that feeling."

Sai shook his head, closing the sketchpad. "I wonder if you do. Anyway, a little while later, I just decided to drop the act and be myself. So we get along pretty well now," he offered a small smile over his shoulder.

"Hm," Naruto said, "So you like to draw?"

"Yes; it's also part of my jutsu. I can show you sometime if you want, but aren't you interested in seeing the village?"

"Well, yeah, I am…" Naruto said, "What Kakashi-sensei said freaked me out a little bit, but I want to see how things are going after the attack. I didn't see much when we were walking here."

Sai nodded and stood, tucking his sketchpad under his arm. "Is there anywhere in particular you would like to go? If you're hungry, they just reopened Ichiraku's not too long ago."

Naruto's stomach growled at the thought. He didn't have to ask how Sai knew that would be a tempting offer. It was strange, but pretty convenient to meet someone that already knew him. "Ahh, now you're talking! I haven't had any lunch yet. It's good to know that Ichiraku's is still around at least. I don't think it would be right otherwise."

'Operation: learn about Konoha of the future' was about to begin. It just so happened that the ramen bar was a good a place as any to start.

….

"I love the new place!" Naruto gushed, settling in on a stool. "It looks like it's been expanded! Thank goodness the menu is the same, though," he added, looking over one of the signs hanging up.

"Oh? Thanks!" Teuchi said, looking up from his chopping to smile proudly. "It's thanks to Naruto that I was able to reopen so quickly. He wouldn't rest until Yamato-san made it a priority. What can I get you?"

Naruto's grin was a mile wide. "A large tonkotsu miso with pork cutlets please! Oh, with some eggs too."

"Same for me," Sai said.

"Sure," Teuchi said. He tapped the blunt edge of the knife against his shoulder contemplatively. "Sorry, I don't remember seeing you in here before, kid. What's your name?"

Teuchi had a sharper memory for faces than any ninja. He made it a point to keep a rapport with all of his customers.

"It's – er – um… Shinji," Naruto stumbled out. He glanced at Sai nervously.

"Sorry, if he was here before then it was probably a long time ago," Sai took over. "He was in Root."

"That group, huh?" Teuchi said with dark understanding. "If it wasn't bad form to talk badly about a Hokage, even just a candidate one…" he muttered and turned around to start his work.

The fact that it had been that easy to deflect suspicion at the simple mention of Root piqued Naruto's curiosity. Kakashi's lazy attitude had given him doubts, but it really seemed to work.

"What _is_ this Root thing, anyway?" Naruto whispered to Sai behind his hand.

"Later," Sai said.

After they got their ramen, Naruto ate quietly for the most part, turned halfway in his seat to watch the street through the open doors of the shop. Plenty of new questions occurred to him while he was sitting there, but he didn't want to express them while Teuchi was working in the background. Pakkun was staring at him none-too-subtly and Naruto gave him pork cutlets from his bowl.

"I wonder if they found anything yet," he said.

"Nothing worth summoning me back for, at least," Pakkun said, "And I don't hear the village sirens going off either, so that's a good sign."

"Maybe it wasn't anyone after all. Maybe it was just a freak accident."

"I'm not sure if that would be better or not," Sai said, putting down money on the counter. "You don't have any money on you, do you?"

"Ah–! Crap, I forgot about that. Sorry," Naruto said sheepishly. "I can pay you back if – you think they'll let me pick up a few D-rank missions around the village or something? I should help work while I'm here anyway."

"I don't know. I guess it depends," Sai counted out the amount for Naruto and put it down. "Do you want to go see Sakura?"

"Eh? Would that be alright?" Naruto asked as they exited the shop. "I mean, I'm not gonna complain if you're suggesting it, but…"

"I think it'll be ok. Why else would he give you the warning about keeping calm, if he didn't expect you to see familiar people?"

"Will seeing Sakura give me a reason to not keep calm?" Naruto asked, very nervously.

"We're probably gonna run into her sooner or later anyway," Pakkun said. "Plus, she might have biscuits."

"This way; we'll check at the Medical Corps first," Sai said, motioning for them to follow. Naruto trotted up beside him, looking dubious. "Unfortunately, I can't really tell you if she has changed, since I only joined you guys' team this past year. I do know that she couldn't have started apprenticing under Tsunade-sama until after she was back in Konoha, so I suppose that could have had an effect."

"She's apprenticed under Tsunade-baachan?" Naruto said curiously. "How so?"

"She's a Medic-nin now," Pakkun said. "Our little Sakura-chan has gotten to be very reliable."

"That's awesome!" Naruto said. "But… something confuses me, Sai. I didn't get what you meant at first when you said I was your teammate, but all that with Kakashi-sensei, and just now when you said you joined our team this past year… are you saying that you're really a permanent team member? How does that work, when we've already got our established Team 7?"

Sai was quiet for a moment. Pakkun looked up at him but didn't say anything either.

"Team 7," Sai said finally, "As a training unit under a jounin instructor, has been dissolved just like all genin teams after promotions. Now we are Team Kakashi, which, while maintaining the structure of the original Team 7, is a normal unit that is subject to adjustments as necessary. For example, sometimes Yamato-taichou takes command of the team instead of Kakashi-sensei. Right now, Yamato-taichou is with the older you on the way to the Lightning Country – or at least, that's the way things were since this morning. With the two of you gone and Sakura spending most of her time with the medics and working for Tsunade-sama, our team is a bit scattered at the moment."

Noting the obvious lack of one member of the team being accounted for, Naruto asked curiously, "So where's Sasuke?"

Sai laughed nervously and Pakkun bit him on the ankle. "Oww! Ah, um. I don't think I should really get into what he's doing out there, but the last correspondence with him was near the Land of Iron. I believe you, Sakura, and Kakashi-sensei met with him there not that long ago."

"Oh," Naruto said with great interest, "So he's on some kind of secret mission right now."

"Something like that," Sai said, eyes wandering in the opposite direction of who he was talking to. "I really can't say anything about it. So, why Shinji?"

"Huh?"

"The fake name you gave Teuchi-san."

"Oh," Naruto shrugged, "It was just the first random name that popped in my head. It's the name of some jerk I met on the way here."

"Ah, that makes sense," Sai said without the slightest hint of irony. "I just thought it was funny that you chose that, since it reminds me of my older brother. His name was Shin. And he was in Root, just like I was."

"Again with the Root? What _is_ it?"

"Later."

"You're doing this on purpose…"

…..

Kakashi was easily able to track Naruto's trail back to where he had arrived from. He had simply traveled along the trade road between Konoha and the little farming village, after all.

Kakashi and his ninja hound Shiba led the way with a small group of ANBU behind them. The rest of his hounds were scattered about with the other teams, each sent to any other small settlements close to Konoha. Even though it was most likely they would find something in Naruto's initial location if there was anything to be found, it paid to be thorough. They could not allow any enemies in their back yard.

When they arrived, they held back, hiding in the trees to observe the village. They already found the place where Naruto had emerged from the woods to look down on it. Kakashi's eye narrowed as he scrutinized the place from up in his tree. Below it just looked like a peaceful little hamlet. Ever since the majority of the residents had left to lend their carpentry and building skills to Konoha, this place had been even quieter than ever before. Only a handful remained to tend to the crops; around 20 or so. Fortunately, they had suffered no collateral damage from the blast that had destroyed Konoha, so there had been no need to stage a cleanup here, nor had there been any reason to keep the Chuunin who was stationed there. If anything happened, the few residents that were there would be left completely undefended.

Kakashi touched the microphone on his neck. "There's no one in the fields or on the street. The whole place looks like a ghost town."

"Proceed with caution," Boar's voice sounded in his ear. "I will back you up. Raven and Tiger, stay in the trees and out of the line of sight. It doesn't look like much of anything is going on here, but we won't know for sure until we can make contact with some of the residents."

Kakashi heard the other two give their affirmative and he jumped down from the tree and sprinted through the grass, Shiba bounding beside him easily. He heard Boar behind him, his steps a faint whisper on the ground, surprisingly quiet for a man his size.

Shiba's nose was to the ground. He sniffed along the street and paused beside one of the fields, giving it several sniffs and turns.

"Seems like Naruto met up with some people here," he said. He trotted down the street a little more and ambled over some freshly plowed earth toward a house on the edge of the field. "Looks like they went in there," he raised his head to stare at the house.

It was a simple wooden structure like all the others. It couldn't have held more than a couple of rooms. Kakashi could see a small tendril of smoke rising from the chimney, which most likely meant that someone was home. He strode up to the house and knocked on the front door.

There was no response, but at this point he hadn't really been expecting any. Something here felt _very_ wrong.

"Is there anyone in there?" he mumbled to Shiba. Kakashi's own nose wasn't all that bad, and he knew what it was telling him. Still, it didn't hurt to have a second opinion.

"Yes," Shiba said with certainty.

"How many?"

"Three. No enemies… I don't think."

Kakashi opened the door and walked in cautiously. He saw that the fire in the hearth was really nothing but a collection of cinders. A pot of stew was over it, still warm. He could smell white rice and daikon and beef.

And there were three bodies splayed on the floor. They were lined up all in the same posture: knees slightly bent and their hands tied behind their back. An old man, a young man, and a boy. It looked as if someone had lined them up on their knees and killed them one by one, leaving them slumped over wherever they fell.

The bizarre thing was, there were no wounds. There was no blood. Poison? Kakashi bent down and sniffed at the abandoned food around the hearth.

"Senpai?" Boar said from the doorway. "Did you find something?"

He came further into the room and saw the bodies. Boar uttered a soft curse under his breath and tapped his radio. "We have three bodies. Move in and search the other houses. If you find anyone, don't move them unless they are still alive and need medical treatment. Prioritize the recovery of any survivors. We will regroup after searching the whole village."

"What do you think?" he asked Kakashi.

"It isn't poison," Kakashi said, standing up from his inspection of the bodies. "There's no scent of it on their mouths or food and there are no puncture wounds from a syringe. We will need an autopsy to be sure though, since it could be a new or undetectable type. The way they are tied up suggests they were restrained and kept alive for a little while before they died. My guess is that someone interrogated them. It could be that they died as the result of some sort of mind-destruction jutsu…" he looked down at the boy's staring, glassy eyes.

"The enemy could have also realized that these people had contact with Naruto," Boar theorized. "But they don't seem outwardly as though they were tortured for information. Why would they just kill them outright like this?"

"If they didn't bother with asking…" Kakashi said slowly, "If the method of getting the information was itself the cause of death."

Boar became very still. "We have seen this before… but that's…"

Kakashi drew in a very long breath. "What is going on here?"

…

The medic-nin seemed busier than almost anyone else in the village. The rebuilt hospital wasn't their only place of operation; they had multiple tents set up at different points in the village for minor care in order to save space in the hospital for only the most serious cases. They also had a warehouse that was being stocked with supplies and organized by genin helpers. At that moment, the work there was being overseen by a single medic.

"Put them all in the same place," Sakura said to a genin team that was pushing a huge wheeled cart full of wooden crates. "Tsunade-sama needs this inventory report _today_. Just there, and go get the next one. I'll unload these." They gratefully scampered off.

"Sakura," Sai called.

Sakura turned around as they approached and her face brightened. "Oh hey, Sai! Did you come to help?"

"Nope, just came to say hello," Sai said cheerfully. Sakura grumbled and started unloading the cart.

She was taller and more sinewy than Naruto remembered. She still had the cropped hair that she had just switched to in his time, tied with a red hitai-ate. The pink hair and striking green eyes were the same as ever, but for the first time, Naruto _really_ felt as though time had passed. She wore tall boots with a dark navy skirt and a sleeveless red vest that was reminiscent of the dress she used to wear, with a light-colored tee underneath it.

She was _even taller than him than before_. And there was something else there too; an aura of confidence that he hadn't even realized until now that she had been lacking before.

"So, what are you doing?" Sai said.

Sakura set down another crate and straightened up, dusting off her hands. "Tsunade-sama wants an inventory of all our medicinal herbs in order to determine if we need to go collect some more. What are you doing? It's not nice for people on their days off to come taunt those that have to work, you know."

"I am working. I've been assigned to guard this person," Sai motioned toward Naruto.

Sakura shifted her attention to him for the first time and Naruto blushed a bit as she appraised him, looking a little confused. After all, he looked just like any other genin. She glanced at Pakkun near his feet and then back at Naruto.

"Who is this?"

"It's Naruto!" Sai said cheerfully.

"Ack–! Sai!" Naruto tugged on his arm, "I thought Kakashi-sensei said we were supposed to be top secret right now!"

"It's alright," Sai said, "Because Kakashi-sensei enlisted me for this task, this is a Team Kakashi mission now. That is why he put me on this task and why he suggested we go out. If he doesn't say it explicitly, he can't get in trouble for it later."

"In theory," Pakkun added.

"Naruto?" Sakura frowned, hand on her hip. "I thought you were being sent out to the Land of Lightning. Or was that just a decoy or something?"

"Ah… he was sent out," Sai said, "but this one suddenly showed up and we might have two Narutos running around now."

Sakura unexpectedly narrowed her eyes at Naruto with a hard, sharp expression he never knew she could make. It wasn't the usual glare like when he did something stupid. It was the cold, professional look of a shinobi analyzing a potential threat. Suddenly he felt very much like a bug pinned to a board.

"I was about to take a little bit of a break," she said lightly, in a tone that completely defied her expression. "Let's go catch up some."

She turned on her heel and walked toward the back of the warehouse. The boys followed; Naruto apprehensive and Sai as blandly chipper as ever. They arrived in a small breakroom and Sakura closed the door behind them. Naruto and Sai sat down in mismatched chairs around a folding table and Sakura poured herself a cup of coffee from the coffee pot on the counter.

"Alright, what is this about?" she said, settling down at the table with them.

Sai explained everything to her, including about Kakashi and the ANBU's scouting mission. It didn't take long and she didn't interrupt, but by the end of it Sakura lowered her head, bangs covering her face. Naruto wondered if she was about to explode.

"I suppose what we do about it in the end depends partly on what they find," Sai finished. "And whether or not the older version of Naruto is still around, or if they traded places somehow, or whatever else."

Sakura looked up, but she didn't seem angry like Naruto had thought. Instead she looked concerned, and she turned to Naruto, who had been mostly quiet throughout the conversation.

"Are you all right?" she asked gently, "I know all of this must have come as a shock to you. I mean, with the village being destroyed and everything. It isn't exactly the future we had in mind for ourselves."

"It's…" Naruto tried to think of what to say. "It's not as bad as I would have thought, I guess. I didn't realize what a relief it would be just to have everyone survive. Oh!" he sat up very straight in his chair suddenly. "I have something really important to ask you!"

"Oh?"

"Yesterday – well, yesterday for me anyway – we were at the inauguration and Kiba was being a jerk and you had to hold me back from pummeling him, do you remember that?"

"I think so… why?"

"Why?" Naruto slammed his hands on the table impatiently. "He was talking trash about me even though I beat him in the preliminaries! I forgot and didn't ask when I saw him earlier, but… _please_ tell me I beat him to Chuunin!"

Sakura blinked at him a couple of times and then burst out into full-blown laughter. Pakkun chuckled and Sai fake-smiled out of habit.

"Sakura-chaaan!" Naruto ground out indignantly. "Why does everyone keep laughing when I ask that?"

"Oh… I'm sorry, Naruto," Sakura wiped away a tear of mirth, "Don't get mad at me, but… technically, you are still a genin."

"You are the only one of our age group registered as an active Konoha nin that is a genin," Sai offered helpfully.

"What?" Naruto said, stunned.

"You didn't have to say it like _that_," Sakura smacked Sai on the back of the head.

"I'm not the one who was laughing at him…"

Naruto stared at their bickering, his fingertips lightly touching the table and halfway out of his chair. Had he completely misunderstood something? He racked his memory. Everyone said he faced the Akatsuki member that had destroyed the village, right? But Kakashi had also said that he didn't actually beat him; that he'd sacrificed himself after being convinced to give up. That didn't really mean that Naruto was necessarily powerful at all! He was just good at talking people into committing suicide? After all this time, he was _still_ the dead-last, the only one in their group still a puny _genin?_

"Maa, Naruto," Sakura said as Naruto hit his forehead on the table, "you don't have to take it so hard. I said _technically_ you're still a genin; everybody knows that you're better than that. It's just the circumstances made it to where you haven't had a chance to take the exam since the first time."

"Oh, really?" he said tonelessly.

"Yeah," she answered earnestly. "Take the current situation, for example. Could you imagine us holding a Chuunin Exams in the state we're in right now? And you've been out of the village a lot, training or out on a mission at all the wrong times. It's just a coincidence, I promise."

"Well then… how strong am I?"

"Mm…" Sakura glanced to the side and rubbed her arm, "I don't really think it would be a good idea to tell you a lot of things about your future self. What if it changes something? Besides, you should already know that you are strong."

"Uh huh," he crossed his arms, dissatisfied.

"Since you guys are just waiting around, come help me unload some boxes," Sakura said, standing and rinsing her coffee mug out in the sink. "We're shorthanded anyway."

Giving a defeated sigh at the change of subject, Naruto followed her out along with Sai and Pakkun. They only barely made it out of the breakroom before Sakura stopped dead.

"KONOHAMARU!" she roared. "_What do you think you're doing?_"

The others looked around Sakura curiously. Moegi and Udon were unloading crates, and two Konohamarus were pouring the contents from one barrel into another barrel. They were all wearing hitai-ate. They were all _genin. _And all of them were currently frozen in place, staring at Sakura.

"Th-this barrel was almost completely empty!" Konohamaru said defiantly, but with an undercurrent of nervousness. "I figured it would help save space if–"

"Idiot!" Sakura raged, punching one of the Konohamarus. The clone disappeared in a puff of smoke and the barrel fell to the ground. "You can't mix random medicinal herbs! Now this stock is unusable. These have already been dried, crushed, and prepared! There's no way to separate them now!"

"Waaahhh, Sakura-neechan!" Konohamaru cried, reeling backward as he dodged another punch. "I'm sorry!"

"Konohamaru-kun…" Moegi sighed, doing a facepalm.

"Oi! Squirt! Konohamaru!" Naruto called, running into the scene eagerly.

Konohamaru stopped in his retreat long enough to glare at him. "Who are you calling squirt? You're smaller than I am, kore!"

With dismay, Naruto realized that he was right. _Shorter than Konohamaru._ This was what it had come to. No, he was almost certain that he would be the taller of the two if not for the henge, at least by a few centimeters. If he could just dispel it…

"Nevermind that," Naruto said out loud, trying to shake off his irritation. He had completely overlooked the fact that Konohamaru would probably be a ninja by now. There was something much more pressing at hand. "Let me see your Oiroke no Jutsu!"

"Eh?" Konohamaru stopped to look at him in confusion. It was fairly likely that he was put off by a complete stranger asking to see him turn into a naked woman.

Naruto didn't notice Sakura stalking toward him until it was too late. With a vicious cry of 'shaannaro!', she reared back and planted her fist into his jaw. Naruto flew, skidded a few times across the warehouse floor, and finally rolled to a stop against a stack of crates all the way on the opposite end.

Sai had been right to question Naruto's experience. Sakura definitely hit harder than before.

"10.0, Sakura-neechan," Konohamaru chirped.

"Owww, what the hell?" Naruto groaned, sitting up and rubbing his jaw.

"Sorry to interrupt, everyone," Sai said, stepping in between Sakura and Konohamaru before more bodies went flying, "Sakura, Pakkun just vanished. Kakashi-sensei must have summoned him back."

"That's the signal that they found something, right? Do you think we should go back to the boarding house to wait for him?" Sakura said.

"We'll go," Sai said, "If you don't hear anything then come by when you're finished up here. Somehow I don't think Tsunade-sama would like you just skipping out."

"Ugh. You're right. But send me a message if he shows up. I'll be over as soon as possible."

Naruto had dragged himself back to their group, still rubbing his face and muttering under his breath. Sakura sighed and reached out toward him. Naruto winced but she just placed her hand on the side of his jaw. A moment later her hand glowed with green energy and the pain and swelling faded away.

"You're blushing, Stupidface," Sai observed with interest.

"S-shut up! I am not!"

Sakura just shook her head as the two walked away, Naruto shooting venomous words at Sai with no effect whatsoever.

"What was that all about… kore?"

"Get back to work!"

"Eep! Yes, Sakura-neechan."

…

**Don't forget to check my profile or tumblr [username Blaizekit] if at any point you desire to know progress/when I'm updating/ if I've had a bridge dropped on me and won't be coming back/ etc. It's working out well as a place to store my updates, and it isn't spammy because I made it for just that specific purpose.**

**I like reviews. Short reviews, long reviews, hi reviews, bye reviews… I'm gonna stop there since it sounds like I'm on the verge of a bad rhyme. Baka yarou, kono yarou.**

**You get the idea.**

**Till next time! **


	3. Introduction Arc: Part III

**Posted (11/2/13)**

**A/N: I changed the story's summary to be a bit more concise, so people don't have to come in to see what the fic's about. Hopefully this will increase hits, since I have great ratio of reviews/favs/alerts per hits, but the hits themselves are low. The interior text has not changed except for my A/N at the beginning where I used to have the summary, and I've added the NICO lyrics to the beginning of each chapter. C: Translation's not mine and can be slightly weird at times.**

* * *

_Days of fleetingly making sound quickly drain away/ Only by being burned can they not be overtaken/ Like it's revolving, like it's crashing down, the spiral staircase doesn't stop/ I don't feel like praying but I'm searching for things to cling onto/ This is just how "real" is/ Sighed words forced into oblivion/ A peaceful sky off in the distance_

* * *

**3: Introduction Arc: Part III**

It had been hours now since they had gone back to the boarding house to wait. Naruto thumbed the edges of _Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi_. He'd settled down to read in order to try to pass the time, but he ended up fidgeting restlessly with it instead. There was something slightly awkward in this atmosphere that made it difficult to focus on anything.

Sai was sitting at the small wooden table across from him, sketching peacefully. He had changed into a more battle-ready gray outfit, complete with hitai-ate and implements for his jutsu, just in case Kakashi's discovery meant they'd be moving out soon. Sakura was sitting in the sill of the open window gazing out at the darkening sky, an occasional breeze lifting the ends of her hair.

As weird as Sai was, at least he was an unknown to him from the start, and he seemed way more forthright when answering Naruto's questions, even if he still didn't give away very much. Sakura was just… odd. She deflected even his most (relatively) sneaky attempts at getting information out of her, and he couldn't even get a read on how she felt about him being around. Whatever she thought, she was doing a good job of keeping it to herself. Naruto's attempts at conversation had puttered out a while ago. Things were quiet, peaceful, and still, and that was just _grating_.

"He should be back by now, right?" Naruto burst out. "It has definitely been enough time to get from there to here."

Sakura turned her gaze from the street to Naruto. "Maybe, but if they found something it's possible they had to investigate it a little more. Besides, you know that Kakashi-sensei likes to take his sweet time when people are waiting for him."

"Yeah," he grumbled. He perked up suddenly. "Hey, hey, Sakura-chan, did we ever get to see under his mask? Is he horribly disfigured, or what?"

"Sorry. At this point I think it'll never happen," Sakura waved a hand. "He'll probably take it to his grave."

"Figures," Naruto leaned his elbow on the table and cradled his chin thoughtfully. "Is it really true that he died during the attack on the village?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"He told me. And the guy who did it all had a super-crazy-revival jutsu and brought everyone that died back to life."

"If he told you, why are you asking me?"

Naruto scowled at her. "I thought maybe you could tell me more about it. Like… like how it happened and why I wasn't here to do anything about it."

Sakura bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Naruto, but if there's any way we can reverse this and you go back to your own time, if you know too much–"

"But it would be a _good_ thing if I could use my knowledge to keep people from getting killed, right?" Naruto pressed.

"It's not your responsibility. We've already relied on you too much."

Sai stopped sketching and watched their exchange with unreadable black eyes.

"What do you mean?" Naruto said, slightly hurt, "Don't you trust me?"

"It's not like that. It's just that it's dangerous to meddle with time. Haven't you ever watched late-night made-for-TV films?"

"No. I'm a growing boy who needs plenty of rest. I go to bed at a reasonable hour." Naruto said virtuously.

"And you don't watch anything that could have ghosts in it," Sai added.

"W-why would I care if something has ghosts in it?"

"You're scared of them, obviously. You would rather camp outside than willingly go into a potentially haunted house."

Naruto 'hmpf'ed obstinately. "You piss me off, you know that?"

"And all was right with the world," Sakura said brightly.

"What about him?" Naruto jerked his thumb at Sai. "I'm not supposed to know him yet. Aren't you afraid that could change things?"

"Maybe, but… back then, he was in Root."

"Right," Naruto said flatly, putting his chin back on his hand. "Because that explains everything."

A smart rapping came on the door and everyone jumped slightly. None of them had heard or felt a presence out in the hallway.

"_Finally_," Naruto jumped up.

"Wait, Naruto," Sakura slid down from the windowsill, "Let one of us–" but he was already opening the door.

The first thing he saw when he opened the door was a plain black cloak. His eyes trailed up and fixed on a pale face with fine cracks running through it like an ancient porcelain doll, framed with black center-parted bangs. Set in this face were terrifying eyes with black sclera and red irises with three tomoe marks in each of them.

"No way," Naruto said, stunned.

A kunai slipped into Uchiha Itachi's hand and Sai pushed Naruto hard in the chest to force him back while using the other hand to block Itachi's strike with the tantō strapped on his back. Naruto stumbled backward and ran clumsily into the corner of his bookshelf – but he barely registered this. Sai and Itachi locked eyes only for a brief moment, but Sai suddenly stilled before crumpling to the ground. The proportions of red and black in Itachi's eyes melded and shifted back from the strange form they had taken. He stepped over Sai's prone form into the room.

"S-Sai!" Naruto choked out. He pushed off from the bookshelf and crossed his fingers. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

His chakra was fully restored but still felt slightly slippery to control. However, he was able to summon two stable clones. The first one rushed Itachi as a distraction and Naruto held out his hand to the other one to begin molding chakra on his palm. The first one was swiftly dispatched with a spinning kick, and when Naruto couldn't feel the Rasengan forming, he glanced at the other only to see it staring at him with a sadistic grin on its face.

"Wh–"

The clone lunged at Naruto and grabbed him from behind, looping its arms under his and locking its hands together behind his neck.

"The joke's on you, Boss," it said.

Itachi was steadily approaching and the kunai slipped into his hand again. Naruto tried to wiggle out of his own clone's grasp but it was no use. He could only watch as Itachi reared back and plunged the knife into his heart, blood springing free from his body and splattering on that impassive face. He screamed.

"Wake up, Naruto!"

He gasped and blinked. Sakura's hand gripped his shoulder firmly.

"He had you in his genjutsu," she said grimly. "Try not to look at his eyes or hands. Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah." He said shakily. Itachi was still standing at the front of the room with Sai lying on the floor behind him. Naruto decided to give it another shot. He crossed his fingers.

"_Wait_," Sakura hissed, pulling on his shoulder insistently, "I had to disrupt your chakra to snap you out of the genjutsu and it broke your henge! If he didn't know it was you before, he definitely does now! You have to get out of here!"

Naruto summoned two more clones, which were, sure enough, the spiky blonde variety he was used to. The first stood in front of them protectively with its arms spread. The second finally managed to get started on a Rasengan in his palm.

"We can't just leave Sai," he said. "If I hit Itachi with this to keep him busy, do you think you could reach Sai? If we have to run away, we should at least do it together."

"I wasn't saying _we_–"

Naruto already started his charge. His two clones dispersed and he lunged at Itachi, who was walking forward slowly. The silent Uchiha didn't doge when Naruto gave a battle cry and plunged the Rasengan into his chest. The whirling spiral of chakra met unresisting flesh and Naruto's hand went _through_ his body before the energy dispersed into the air. Itachi's body jerked and ash-like flakes flew from the wound, but there was no blood, and he didn't cry out or change his blank expression. Confused and slightly horrified at the sight of his hand piercing through someone – something he'd only seen Kakashi accomplish– Naruto was caught off guard and Itachi gladly took that opening. He grabbed Naruto by the throat with a bone-crushingly strong grip and lifted him off the ground.

Naruto choked and kicked out with his legs, but it was no good. He remembered all too well when Itachi had used a tactic like this on Sasuke. It hadn't ended well. All of his body's alarm bells were screaming at him to escape.

He was only suspended there for a moment, however. A flash of pink entered his vision and he saw Sakura cleave through Itachi's arm below the elbow using the blade above her tool pouch. Itachi stepped back and Naruto fell to the floor, coughing. The arm dissolved in ash-like pieces and started re-forming itself on the stump Sakura had left him with.

"What the hell is going on?" Naruto coughed, his voice coming out raspy from his abused throat.

"I'm not sure," Sakura said tersely, putting away the blade and standing in front of Naruto with her fists raised. "We once fought against someone we _thought_ was Itachi but it turned out to be one of Pein's techniques, that allowed Itachi to channel a portion of his chakra through someone else and fight as if it was him. But… this doesn't look like that technique. That time, he was able to take damage and the medium changed back to themselves once the chakra sustaining it ran out. Besides, Uchiha Itachi isn't in a position to donate his chakra like that," her fists tightened, "I have an idea of what this might be. I really hope I'm wrong, though."

"What do you think we should do?"

Itachi's arm finished regenerating and he lifted his re-formed hand into a half-ram seal. A wave of heavy, overwhelming pressure fell over them like a sudden increase in the pull of gravity on their bodies. The lights in the room started to dim to almost nothing and darkness encroached on their senses.

"He's trying to trap us both at the same time," Sakura said through gritted teeth. Her hands and arms were drooping and her back was bending as if her limbs suddenly weighed a ton. "Need to… break out of it…" she tried to lift her hands to form a seal, but it was proving difficult.

"Damn it," Naruto muttered. He tried reaching for a kunai–he knew the only chance he had left of breaking the genjutsu would be to disrupt it with physical pain– but was quickly reminded that he had left his kunai, along with the rest of his equipment and everything else he owned minus the clothes on his back, in the past. His hand flopped to the floor uselessly once he realized that, energy spent from the simple movement.

_It's just an illusion_, he tried to tell himself. _Your body isn't really this heavy. It's suggestion. Snap out of it!_

The mere effort of standing was making Sakura breathe heavily, and her knees were bowing in as if they were mere moments away from folding. She gave a long inhale, squared her shoulders a little bit, and then wrenched her arm back as far as it would go with an enraged roar.

When she hit the floor with her fist, it _disintegrated _into wood pulp and thousands of tiny splinters. Naruto closed his eyes and felt the entire world collapse out from under him. Large cracks ripped through the floor, wood groaning and snapping like broken bones. The whole mass churned and took him with it as it fell down to the story below, pelting him with debris in a heart-stopping drop that felt much longer than it must have really been. He landed on his back hard enough to evict the air from his lungs and he reflexively curled and put his hands over his head as debris continued to fall around him. Through the chaos he heard shrieks and shouts. These went on after the noise of the collapse subsided. New voices emerged and settled into a loud running hum of confusion and distress.

Naruto heard a muffled cough much closer by and he squinted through his arms. Sakura was hanging over him, coughing into the crook of her elbow, trying to turn her head so as not to cough on him. Her other hand was next to his head and he realized that she'd shielded him with her body. She didn't appear to be mortally wounded, but her arms and face had scratches on them and the end of a beam was propped up on her back looking like it had fallen on her.

"S-sakura-chan?" he said through what felt like a mouthful of sawdust.

"Are you okay?" she asked, turning to look down at him.

"Am _I_ okay?" he yelped, "You just made a floor of a building fall _on top of yourself_."

"It's alright, no broken bones or concussion," she frowned suddenly and put a glowing green hand around his head, as if checking _him_ for concussion. "More importantly, we broke out of that genjutsu. Otherwise, we'd probably be dead."

Naruto sat up quickly and she didn't try to stop him. Apparently he wasn't concussed, then, though he felt a little bit like he was. "Itachi? And Sai? What happened to them?"

"Oi! What happened?"

"What's going on?"

"An explosion?"

"Someone alert Hokage-sama!"

Sakura stood up, wrestling a little with the beam before managing to slide it safely to the side.

"I don't see Itachi; he may have gotten away. With all these people around… not even he can take on the whole village," she said. "We need to find Sai, though; he was unconscious–"

"_Sakura!_"

Naruto peeked over the edge of the little hole of debris they were in and saw Ino jumping lightly over the barricade of splintered wood. Part of the first floor's wall had been knocked out and he could see Shikamaru and Chouji standing in the street, but they too were approaching quickly with looks of shock and concern.

"What happened?" Ino landed lightly in front of her best friend and gripped her by the arms. "Are you okay? We were just passing by and heard this huge crash–"

"I'm fine," Sakura reassured, "but there might be people buried in the collapse that need help."

They had landed in the lounge/eating area on the first floor. Most of the middle of the room was piled with debris. Everyone that had been in the building was gathering around the damage; some of them were on the second floor peering down through the room-sized hole. A crowd from the street was also rapidly forming. Several cooks were huddled at the doorway to the kitchen; it was adjacent to the dining room and there was no clear path for them to get out.

"Sakura-san," one of the cooks called anxiously, "I remember there were four or five shinobi sitting out here."

Sakura turned to them, stretching her neck to see over the large pile of debris in between them, "Taki-chan? Can you guys get out? Were there any civilians in the dining room?"

"I don't think so; the maid left hours ago and all of us cooks were in the kitchen getting dinner started," Taki said.

"We're fine," a tall, apron-wearing man beside her said. "Get the others out first."

"Oi! Anyone under there! If you can answer, speak up!" Ino shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth.

"I'm here!" called a voice weakly from somewhere in the mess.

"Help me," pleaded another. "I… I think my leg is broken."

Sakura cursed to herself and clamored gingerly toward the voice. "Hold on! We'll get you out!"

"Now you've done it, Sakura-chan," Naruto stood up, dusting himself off.

"Naruto?" Ino looked down at him confusedly from her at-least-a-head-taller height, holding out a hand to compare the difference. "What happened to _you?_"

"Eheh… long story?" Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Ino just blinked at him. Like Sakura, she'd grown taller and fitter and some of the childishness had gone out of her face. However, unlike Sakura, she had grown her flax-blonde hair back out from when she cut it in the exam. Shikamaru didn't look very different aside from the fact that his body had grown, though he did look sort of funny in a chuunin vest. It was hard to imagine him getting promoted (and even _he _had, while Naruto was still a lousy genin?). Chouji was as big as he ever was, but his proportions had evened out a bit and he had grown his hair out. He now wore a more traditional looking Akimichi-style outfit with armor plating. Naruto was relieved that all three seemed more concerned with the matter at hand than his own oddly young appearance at the moment.

"Chouji," Shikamaru said, nodding toward where Sakura was kneeling and peering into a hollow.

"Yeah," Chouji held his hands in his family's signature Expansion Jutsu sign and reached out with a huge hand to lift debris off of the unfortunate shinobi. Sakura wasted no time in attending to the man's leg. Chouji carefully dropped it all to the side and reached out to continue clearing the room.

"Naruto, we could use a few dozen of you to help clear this stuff out, alright?" Shikamaru spared him a glance. "Ino, let's get everyone out of the building, starting with those cooks. If the structure was damaged it could come the rest of the way down at any time. Be careful where you step," he jumped over the pile to the doorway of the kitchen and the cooks backed up to let him through.

"Right!" Ino said, following suit.

"Osu!" Naruto concentrated on his chakra. It seemed to be flowing more naturally each time he used it, like a sputtering tap that had been dried out. 30 clones popped into existence and he set most of them to the task of lifting and moving everything to the edges of the room, but a few he sent to wiggle into tight spaces, looking for people. Naruto himself picked carefully toward where he thought Sai could be. He saw the table from his room and headed toward that, sparing half a thought for the irony that now he was getting to experience picking his things out of ruins. So far, the hypothesis that he worried more about the safety of his friends – even if they were only his future friends – was proving true.

"Sakura-chan, there's a guy here with a pretty bad cut on his head," one of the clones called out.

Shinobi from the second floor that had been watching the whole thing jumped down through the hole to help shift things out of the way, calling to one another and organizing their efforts. It was no wonder; they were practically professional disaster-recoverers at this point. Naruto looked under the thick wooden table from his room and was semi-relieved not to see Sai there; something that heavy falling on him would have been really bad. However, he did find Sai's sketchpad poking out of the pile of splintered boards nearby and he tucked it under his arm. Naruto peered around. The impact from the table's fall had caused some of the tatami mats in the dining room to bend and stick up in the air. He shouldered himself under a likely-looking tatami mat and saw a pale arm.

"Sai," he said with a mixture of worry and relief, and grabbed the boy under his arms and pulled him backwards out of the pile. Fortunately, he didn't have any apparent injuries aside from superficial scratches. "Hey, wake up, Sai," he said, slapping the sides of his face lightly.

Sai's face twitched and his eyes opened. His gaze looked vague and glassy. It was an expression that looked horribly familiar.

"Oh, crap," Naruto mumbled, waving his hand over Sai's face, "don't tell me he did that… that thing…"

Sai lifted his hand up a little and Naruto paused his waving. Sai blinked and slowly pushed Naruto's hand away.

"Don't worry," Sai said in an uncharacteristically dazed voice. Then he passed out again.

Naruto put his arm over his shoulders and stood up resolutely, putting Sai's sketchbook in the pouch he was wearing so it wouldn't get lost. He jumped over to the hole in the wall that led out to the street– only to find his way blocked by a very large, soft pair of obstructions.

"_What the hell happened here?_" Tsunade seethed. Her hands were on her hips and he could swear her long pigtails were swaying in the energy radiating off her body.

"B-baachan!" Naruto said, terrified as he was relieved. "I was going to try to find you– you have to help Sai, he had that brain-melty thing done to him–"

"I thought I told you stay out of trouble," Tsunade raised a fist and Naruto backed up by a step. "Can you explain to me _why_ you insist on doing the _opposite_ of that all of the time? And what happened to your disguise?"

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune said, laying a hand on Tsunade's arm and looking at Sai.

"I can explain it later," Naruto said quickly, "It's Sakura-chan's fault anyway, so you can yell at her about it. But forget about that right now; Itachi showed up and used that Tsuku... whatsit on Sai. And there are probably a couple of other people that need to go to the hospital too."

"_Itachi?_" Shizune gasped, "You don't mean _Uchiha_ Itachi?"

"Tsunade-sama," Shikamaru interjected, causing Naruto to whip his head toward him – he hadn't noticed the other boy approach – "the building's been evacuated and we think we've recovered everyone buried in the debris. Sakura said she could give her report at the hospital after moving everyone that needs treatment there."

"Fine," Tsunade said curtly, turning to her assistant, "Shizune, you go on ahead to the autopsy room. I'll be down there after I deal with this, but send for me if you have to. Shikamaru, go with her."

"Hah? Why me?"

"I sent Kakashi out to investigate something earlier," Naruto looked up sharply at the mention of his teacher's name, but Tsunade ignored him, "Apparently, they found something pretty mysterious. Shizune will be busy, so I need you to listen to his report and, along with Shizune's findings, put together some possible explanations for what they found."

"Right," Shikamaru sighed. Shizune nodded and walked away at a brisk clip. Shikamaru glanced at Naruto and Sai one last time before trailing after her looking in much less of a hurry.

"Alright," Tsunade said resignedly, "follow me, Naruto. I don't know _why_ I thought things could ever be quiet with you around…" she grumbled as she turned and stalked toward the hospital.

…

"Geez," Naruto said, letting out a long breath, "maybe all this really is a dream, and I just have a great imagination."

Tsunade and Sakura looked at him. All three were standing in the hospital room where Sai lay sleeping; thanks to Tsunade, it was a natural sleep untroubled by dreams. Night had truly fallen now and the florescent lights made him look even paler than usual. The two women had been murmuring quietly together when Naruto's out-loud musing drew their attention.

"It's like…" Naruto wrapped his hand around the cold metal of the bed's footboard, "all of this just happened, where I was, but it was all slightly different. An attack on the village. Itachi. Someone ending up… like this," he gestured toward Sai. "I could maybe make something like this up. Now that I think about it, Sai sort of resembles Sasuke; though I don't know why I would have made him look like a vampire…"

Tsunade sighed and moved beside him, laying her hand over his. "Sai is going to be fine. His body is just trying to compensate for what it _thinks_ has been multiple days without sleep. He has had a lifetime of specialized psychological training; a Tsukuyomi designed for just any shinobi is unlikely to have a lasting effect on him. Sadly, it's even likely that he has experienced worse… in his training. The attack's effectiveness depends a lot on how well the caster knows the victim's tolerances. I hate to say it, but out of the three of you, it was probably best that it hit him."

"It was aimed for me," Naruto said in a low voice, "Sai jumped in between us. He could have defended himself if he hadn't been trying to push me out of the way."

"It's an especially good thing, then," Tsunade said lightly, trying to joke, "I'm sure that Sai is more than capable of handling three days of watching someone eat ramen in front of him without sharing."

Naruto shrugged unenthusiastically.

"In all seriousness, though, it's probably what saved you from being captured. That's not the kind of move that can be done multiple times in succession. Most likely, the confrontation was only meant to last a few seconds. As it was, there was time to realize what was happening, involve a bunch of witnesses," her voice turned wry, "and cause a massive amount of collateral damage."

Sakura stiffened noticeably; it was likely that she was going to be in the doghouse for quite a while for her choice of methods in breaking Itachi's genjutsu.

The door to the hospital room opened, and all of the room's (conscious) occupants turned their heads to see an aged woman enter. Her face was deeply lined, her hair in a tidy silver bun, and she wore loose but elegant clothing. Naruto recognized her as a member of the Third's entourage, but since she was one of the adults that seemed to consistently act as though he didn't exist even when he was in the same room, he'd never bothered to pay her much attention either.

Tsunade put her hand on the footboard beside Naruto's and turned her body toward the visitor in a seemingly unconscious movement that blocked him most of the way from view. Naruto peered around her arm curiously.

"Koharu," Tsunade said, "did you need me for something?"

Koharu frowned, possibly in reaction to Tsunade's somewhat rude way of addressing her, which she chose to return, "Tsunade. Why are you here instead of the autopsy room? I understand that you haven't even bothered to hear Hatake's report yet?"

Naruto could sense the tension in the room even if he wasn't entirely sure why it was there. The way Koharu scolded Tsunade like an erring child was surprising to him– he didn't think anyone existed that would _try_ to talk to her like that, much less get away with it. What was more surprising was the fact that Sakura's body language was somehow even more defensive than Tsunade's. Her back was to Naruto, so he couldn't see the expression she was leveling at the old lady, but her shoulders were taut and her fists were clenched at her sides. He didn't know much about the situation, but he was at least fairly certain that Sakura decking the older woman would be an even worse idea than punching out the floor of a building.

"There was no real need to go while the autopsy was still pending, since we need that data before any solid conclusions can be made anyway," Tsunade said. "In the meantime, I was hearing _Sakura's_ report on the attack _inside_ the village– which, I thought, took precedence over whatever happened outside."

"Very well," Koharu conceded with a nod, "And? Any leads on who would try to incite panic by making it look like Uchiha Itachi appeared suddenly in our midst? Do you think was done as a distraction to turn our eyes inward?"

"It was neither a distraction, nor a trick. It was really him," Tsunade loosened her death grip on the footboard and gestured at Sai's prone form, "This boy was definitely on the receiving end of his Tsukuyomi. That is not a power that can simply be imitated."

Koharu's normally squinted eyes opened as she fixed Tsunade with a serious look. "But he's dead."

Naruto, who was listening intently to the conversation in order to learn anything he could out of it, felt a swooping sensation in his stomach, as if he'd missed a stair.

"From what Sakura described, it was almost certainly Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei," Tsunade said steadily.

Koharu's posture stiffened. Sakura still looked as if she was barely keeping herself from saying anything. Naruto continued listening with every fiber of his being.

"We can discuss this on the way to the autopsy room," Koharu said finally. "In the meantime, what will you do with Naruto? You never gave an answer about that."

Naruto was listening so carefully that he physically jerked when his name was said out of nowhere. She had to know he was there; he wasn't out of sight entirely… but she wasn't looking at him. She only looked at Tsunade, who continued to stand in front of him like she thought the old woman planned to run him through with a sword.

"Naruto and Sakura will stay in here with their teammate until I get back," Tsunade said. "I do not think they will try to go after him again tonight, not after putting the entire village on high alert. Besides that, we shouldn't even _think_ about moving him from the village until we can make an arrangement among the Allied Shinobi Forces with regards to his protection."

Koharu scoffed. "Unusual circumstances aside, do you really think the other nations will accept the idea of _two_ Konoha Jinchuuriki? If the original nine are already accounted for, there is no need to volunteer the information that there may be another one. Have you even checked to confirm whether this is even an issue worth talking about?"

"Not thoroughly," Tsunade said through clenched teeth, "We're not going to talk about this here. Come on," she marched toward the door, "Sakura, keep an eye on Naruto and Sai until I get back, please."

"Yes, shishou," Sakura said stiffly, and she closed the door as the other two left. Naruto sat down slowly in a chair beside the bed and Sakura sat down in a chair on the opposite side. She looked at Sai, but now that Naruto could see her face, he could tell that she wasn't really seeing what she was looking at. Her nose was wrinkled in disgust and she was glaring at Sai as if he'd mortally offended her. (No doubt that had actually happened at some point, with his weird personality, but in this moment it didn't fit.)

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto called softly. She blinked and her eyes snapped to him, the harsh expression melting into a politely questioning one. "What is it between you and that old lady? I've never even seen you give _me_ a look that bad."

Sakura took a deep breath, held it for about ten seconds, and then let it out slowly. Her eyes dropped to where her hands were lying in her lap.

"It's not her," she said eventually, "Not really. Not… personally, I suppose. It's that whole mindset I hate. She's definitely not the only one; and not even the worst. It's more of… things it reminds me of and what I've seen that kind of thinking do to my friends," she took another deep breath and blew it out noisily. "After everything the village has been through, I'm just sick of it. When I think about it being directed at you – even more than it already _has _– I get so mad, I–" she brought her hands up to her face, and he was startled to see tears rapidly swelling in her eyes.

"Hey now… calm down," Naruto said uncomfortably, lifting a hand to reach out to her, "What mindset? Reminds you of what? If it's really on my account, you don't have to get so mad. That old lady hasn't done anything to me as far as I know, and if it's something from after my time… well… it's not upsetting me, so you shouldn't let it upset you."

Sakura scrubbed her face with her hands and seemed to compose herself. "You're right; it doesn't matter that much anymore. If you'd shown up while _that_ _man_ was still around…" she shuddered, "Anyway, I probably shouldn't get into that. If I did, I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut on other things that I really should."

"Why?" Naruto said earnestly, "Sakura-chan, if you tell me, there might be a chance I could–"

"No," Sakura growled.

"Well… well…" he cast around for another topic she might be willing to go into, "What were they talking about a minute ago? About me leaving the village? Kakashi-sensei was talking about something like that too, earlier on."

"Well, that _is_ the reason why the older you just left for the Lightning Country," Sakura said, "So that it will be harder for the Akatsuki or anyone else to track you down. I'm not surprised it's the first thing they thought of. Tsunade-sama must have told the Council about you already, since it's a pretty big deal."

"It is?" Naruto frowned, "Well I mean, obviously me showing up here from the past is a big deal and everything, but that old lady seemed to care less about _that_ than getting me to go into hiding as soon as possible."

"Yes, well, we've had a little more time to see just how serious our enemies are," Sakura said dryly.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head, "It's just… weird, having people make this much fuss over me. Last time, Itachi _and_ that fish-guy _both_ appeared in the village and took out a few jounin, but nobody was saying I needed to be shipped off back then…"

"I guess back then, no one really understood the danger," Sakura shrugged, "Well, except for Jiraiya-sama maybe. But now that they've managed to capture almost all of the Jinchuuriki, people are finally starting to care a little bit about the threat Akatsuki poses to the ones that are left," she rolled her eyes, "though not necessarily out of the sheer goodness in their hearts."

There was that word again. Naruto frowned. He could dismiss it, if only people didn't keep using it in reference to himself. "Jinchuuriki?"

"That's what it's called when someone has a bijuu in them," Sakura said slowly, "I don't know when the term got coined, but I thought it was way before our time… you didn't know it?"

"Bijuu?" Naruto scowled.

A pit of unease was growing in his gut and his heart was starting to beat a little faster, but he wasn't sure why. His body was already reacting to something that his mind hadn't quite connected together yet.

Sakura stared at him. She was starting to look as uneasy as he felt. "You… you _do_ know why the Akatsuki want to capture you in the first place, right? I thought…" she fell silent.

Naruto nodded emphatically, feeling his heart beat somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. He couldn't speak, or else he thought he might choke on it.

"Well then, because, you know…" she looked around helplessly, as if searching for a more delicate way of saying it, "That's what the Kyuubi is."

Naruto shot up out of his chair, staring at her in wide-eyed realization. He backed away and stumbled a little on the legs of the chair before he backed into the wall and couldn't go any farther. He pressed himself against it like he desperately hoped it would swallow him up.

Sakura looked almost as alarmed as she stood up too. "Naruto? I'm… I'm sorry, I thought that you already knew why they were… c-crap, I wouldn't have wanted you to find out like this…"

Naruto just shook his head. He wanted to explain to her that he knew _exactly_ why the Akatsuki were after him; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that, last he checked, the only people that knew the Kyuubi was sealed inside of him were all old enough to actually remember its attack on the village. There was even a _law_ about it. Even _he_ wasn't supposed to know about it! And after he'd found out, part of him had been glad for the law, because most of the people who knew the truth couldn't trouble themselves to regard him as human. The problem was that the thing that always hurt him the most, even before he knew what it was, had always been locked up tight where it couldn't spread to anyone he actually gave a damn about. He knew that the handful of understanding adults in his life were rare exceptions to the rule. And now, the hidden barb he always tried to cover up was apparently common knowledge, exposed for everyone to see? Naruto bit his lip and opened the window beside him with fumbling hands.

"Wait– Naruto!" Sakura called in alarm, but he was already out the window and running across the rooftops. She sighed.

"I hope I didn't just do what I think I just did," she told the unconscious Sai.

…..

Naruto figured that Sakura would probably be coming after him soon, maybe even with Tsunade, and it was possible that both of them would be very angry. That was alright; he just needed a little time for the reeling in his brain to stop.

How could he have just _assumed_ that everyone was as much in the dark about him as in his time? The whole village had been leveled to the ground just to find him. That was bound to make it pretty obvious that he wasn't just a normal kid. People would have to have answers. They would need to know exactly why their homes were destroyed. They needed to label the source of their pain in order to be able to understand and move past it.

_Jinchuuriki_. He rolled that word over and over in his mind. That's what they called it. Sakura and the old lady had said there were others like him and that was what they were called. Really, that shouldn't have been a surprise either. He'd met someone else like him already, hadn't he? He'd never considered the wider implications of it, though, when he met Gaara. He'd just empathized so immediately and intensely with the other boy that all his focus had been on trying to show him that he didn't have to live his life in the hell called loneliness.

Naruto hopped down from the rooftop into a narrow gap between two buildings and leaned back against a wall, concentrating on breathing deeply with his eyes closed.

Gaara had been a frightening glimpse at what _could_ have been. Everyone in Suna knew what he was. Even his own siblings were terrified of him. It had made Naruto all the more grateful that people his age didn't know; didn't get the chance to decide he was a monster before he could show that he wasn't.

_My friends had the chance to know me first,_ he told himself, letting out a long and slow breath. _They had years and years. It's not the same._

Naruto stood there leaning against the wall for what felt like a long time. Hiding in close, dark spaces was a habit left over from his childhood that he rarely did anymore. In general, he preferred to deal with stress by facing whatever was stressing him head-on. But when he needed time to soak something in, the instinct to hide so that no one could see the extent to which he had been affected would come back. He hated pity more than anything else.

The quietly bustling sounds of the street slowly came back as a measure of calm returned. Naruto knew that he could trust his friends. It was just… a minor shock to realize it so suddenly after walking around the whole day unaware that everyone knew about him. Even the _first_ people he'd spoken to in this time had known, and they weren't even citizens of Konoha. Yet, they hadn't sounded disgusted when they talked about him. That had to count for something.

And Gaara? Did all this mean that he was in danger, too? That Suna was in danger? Or, could he have already been…

Naruto opened his eyes and looked up at the small rectangular patch of the night sky that he could see from down in the narrow alley. He had to know. No matter what Sakura said, he would poke around until _somebody_ told him whether or not Gaara was safe.

Having something to focus his energy on made his head feel a lot clearer. Naruto sidled sideways until he was out in the street again – only to come face to face with a girl with long, dark hair and pale eyes looking at him curiously. She was slightly younger than him and looked like an Academy student. How did she…?

The girl gave a small, polite bow, and when she looked at him again he abruptly realized it. Her large, pale eyes marked her as a Hyuuga. She had seen him skulking in his hiding place with her Byakugan.

"Naruto-san," she said with a hint of curiosity, "what were you doing back there?"

Naruto squinted at her and racked his memory, trying to figure out whether he knew this girl or not. Honestly, it was difficult; to him the people in her family all looked alike.

"Ah, um," he scratched his cheek, "nothing sneaky, I just needed to be alone to think for a moment. Did I… that is, do I know you? I'm not exactly…"

"I know; you're not the Naruto-san that everyone knows," she shook her head, "The Clan Heads and the Council have all been told about what has happened. By chance, I was there too. Word about it will probably spread pretty quickly in the village now."

"Oh," he said awkwardly.

"Anyway, to answer your question, no, you don't really know me," she said quickly, "Forgive me for being rude. Sometimes I get scolded for being too curious about things. I should have just passed by if you wanted to be left alone."

"Oh no, it's okay," he smiled, "I'm mostly over it now. Besides, seeing someone that looks down and wanting to help them is nothing to be scolded over. So, thanks."

"I was out of the village too," the girl blurted out, "when it happened, I mean. My father and I were on a training journey and we just got back. So, I know how you feel, I mean, a little bit. When we left, everything was fine. When we came back, it was all gone. And also, I wanted to thank you for what you did. Father wants to thank you too, I think, but he feels ashamed for not being here. He thinks that he should have been the one – after neesan–"

"Wait, wait, wait," Naruto said, shaking his head, "I don't really get much of what you're saying, and it wasn't me that did anything, so no one has to thank me. But," he perked up, "if you wanna explain to me what happened in detail, that would be pretty cool."

"Hanabi-sama!" a Hyuuga man came trotting up, looking relieved, "Why did you wander off like that all of a sudden? Your father…" he drifted off when his eyes landed on Naruto.

Naruto almost flinched; after the thoughts that he'd been going over earlier, he half expected the man to give him the most disdainful look a Hyuuga could muster and pull the girl away from him. Instead, the man did something that would have been unprecedented in Naruto's own time– his face broke into a genuine smile and he bowed, dipping his head much lower than Hanabi had. From the look of the bandana he had tied around his head, he was a Branch House member.

"Naruto-san," he greeted warmly, "I would have thought you would be with the Hokage right now."

"I'm sorry, Ko, was Father angry?" Hanabi asked.

Ko shook his head, "No, but he will want us to head back soon. Things are very busy right now, and as the Head, he naturally has to juggle many village and Clan responsibilities. It will take some time to work through everything that has piled up in his absence."

Naruto hit his fist to his palm in realization. "You're Hinata's little sister!"

"Oh, yes. It was rude of me not to introduce myself," Hanabi gave a short bow, "Excuse me, we have to be going now. When you talk to her, please tell my sister that Father will be holding a clan meeting tomorrow, so when she comes home she should go see him." She turned and walked away. Ko gave Naruto a bow and followed after her.

"Okay…" Naruto said to himself, "but why would you think that I am going to–"

"Oiii! Naruto!" a familiar cocky voice called and Naruto turned to see Kiba and Akamaru ambling toward him, with Shino and Hinata flanking him on each side.

Naruto looked his friends over with interest. Now that he knew Kiba really _was_ older, it was much more obvious. Shino… he was so covered up with clothes that if he hadn't been with the rest of his team, Naruto wasn't sure he would have known him. Hinata had grown her hair out and stood taller, and it wasn't just her literal height. The way she was standing made her look less curled into herself than before, though her feet were still a little pigeon-toed. The biggest difference, though, was that she was looking right at him, whereas before, she would have been looking at the ground near his feet. Currently her brow was crumpled in consternation in a way that clearly showed that she also knew the reason for his odd (for this time) appearance.

Kiba was looking at him with much more interest than he ever had before. "So, it's true then?" he said without any preamble, "You're actually from the _past?_"

"Probably," Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head, "I haven't ruled out that maybe I just ate too much before I went to bed last night and this is just a crazy dream."

"You know, a lot of people thought it was the worst idea of an infiltration attempt they ever heard and thought you should be arrested, instead," Kiba said seriously. "We just came from where your boarding house got halfway destroyed. Ino said someone already tried to get to you. I guess that backs your claims up."

"What, you don't believe me?"

"Nahhh… I knew what I smelled, and besides, Akamaru can always sense it when someone has evil intent, and he walked up to you right away. Man, only you could have something like this happen to you, though." He patted Naruto on the head in a way that he really didn't like, and with far more force than was necessary. "I should have realized something was going on, with how short you are."

"Piss off, Kiba," Naruto growled, ducking out from under his hand and glaring, "You might be a few years older than me now but I can still take you on, any time!"

"He is just relieved," Shino said, "He thought that he might have been mistaken and led an enemy to the village. Even so, he still let his guard down. He depends on his nose too much."

"Get off it, Shino!" Kiba snarled, "Like you don't use your bugs for everything and like Hinata doesn't use her eyes for everything! We all have our own skills we depend on."

"Hey, don't put Hinata in the same category as you! She's definitely smarter than you are," Naruto snorted.

Hinata bit her lip. She seemed too worried to be quietly amused as she normally would be by their banter. She frowned and pressed the tips of her fingers together anxiously. "Are you alright, Naruto-kun?" her voice was remarkably steady, especially compared to the way he remembered it, but it was still very soft and quiet.

"Ah… yeah, I'm fine! You don't have to worry about me," he grinned reassuringly, "It's no big deal. All I have to do is figure out how to get back to my own time, and everything will be okay. The only hard part is figuring out the weirdness of this time. Everyone seems so grown-up and amazing. I really want to know more about myself, but no one seems to want to tell me anything."

"He'll be fine. He's too simple to even let an attack from the Akatsuki get him down," Kiba retorted. Then he sidled next to Hinata and elbowed her in the side. "Hey, you'll want to be careful, it looks like your little sister is moving in on your territory."

"Eh?" Hinata turned red and suddenly regained some of her old tongue-tiedness, "T-that's not– I mean– they're both only–"

"Oh yeah, Hinata, your sister said something about there being a Hyuuga meeting thing," Naruto said, remembering suddenly, "You're supposed to go talk to your dad about it or something."

"A…ah. Thank you," Hinata said, nodding.

Naruto tilted his head. "Um… is there a reason why she wanted me to tell you instead of telling you herself? Are you guys having a fight or something?"

"What? No, nothing like that. She probably…" Hinata fidgeted a little, "She probably just wanted to make sure that we got to meet. The two of you have never spoken, but she does admire you, in her own way. She was with Father at the meeting of Clan Heads earlier when Hokage-sama told them about your situation. There was talk of you being sent somewhere to hide, and she didn't really agree. Of course, it really wasn't her place to say anything about it one way or the other. She wasn't really even supposed to be there in the first place."

"Huh," Naruto said, "weird."

"D'you know where you'll be going yet?" Kiba asked.

"No… I don't even really understand why I have to leave anyway," Naruto grumbled, "Kakashi-sensei said it was just because it's easier to find me here… and I guess he's right, since I was here for less than a day before _Itachi_ came after me–"

"What?" Hinata gasped, and Shino raised his eyebrows.

"Oh," Naruto said, "I thought Ino told you?"

"All she said was that someone tried to kidnap you and the house was damaged in the struggle," Hinata said, "Was it really _him?_"

"I thought that guy was dead," Kiba said.

"I know what I saw," Naruto said heatedly, "Ask Sakura-chan, she was there. She's the one that smashed our boarding house in order to escape from his genjutsu," he paused, weighing his words carefully, "Why is it that people think he's dead, anyway? Was it… I mean, did… did Sasuke finally kill him?"

Saying this thought aloud gave him a slight chill; to imagine Sasuke killing his own older brother was a little difficult for him. He didn't doubt Sasuke's determination… especially after seeing the encounter he'd had with Itachi last time… but it was still surreal to imagine that he could have already fulfilled his ambition in this time. It was even harder to imagine when he had seen for himself just how much in another league Itachi was from him _or_ Sasuke. To pull it off, Sasuke would have had to improve at an insane rate in the intervening years.

"That's what I heard," Kiba said, "But I guess there could always be a mistake. They definitely fought. We didn't get to see it, though. Our team and yours tried to go to where it was happening, but that masked bastard got in the way and kept us from interfering. By the time we got there, it was just a bunch of rubble. There weren't any bodies, so I dunno, maybe he did get out of it alive. I don't suppose anyone's bothered trying to ask _Sasuke_ if he's sure he killed him or not."

"K-kiba-kun, be careful," Hinata said.

"Oh yeah…" Kiba frowned, "Er… well, you know. That's not the kind of thing you just come out and ask someone, especially someone like him. You know how touchy he can be," he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

"Ok…" Naruto said, slightly perplexed, "I'll just ask Sakura-chan about it when I get the chance, I guess. Her and Baachan seem to think that Itachi is dead and it's just some kind of technique that makes it seem like he's alive again. Ah, damn it," he put his face in his hands and groaned, "I forgot, she's probably looking for me right now. I'm kind of supposed to be waiting with her at the hospital. I guess I'd better be going back before she finds me and turns my insides into my outsides."

"That would probably be wise," a dryly amused voice said, and everyone started when a cat-masked ANBU appeared in their midst. Naruto vaguely recognized her mask, as well as her long, purple hair. He'd had enough clashes with the ANBU in his life that he knew several of them by sight. "Did you really think that you would be allowed to wander off alone?"

"No," Naruto said honestly, "I thought Sakura-chan was going to come after me and punch my head in."

"Ah," she said, "I don't know about the last part, but she did want to come after you. However, we convinced her to let us handle it."

Naruto glanced behind her and saw two more ANBU standing on rooftops at a distance. Undoubtedly they were scanning the area for potential threats even as Naruto and the purple-haired lady stood there talking. He fleetingly wondered if this was what his stay in the future was going to be like from now on.

"I'll talk to you guys later," he said glumly.

All of them, even Hinata, looked noticeably disgruntled at the abrupt end to the conversation.

"It was cool seeing you!" Kiba called after him as they walked away, Cat poised her hand behind Naruto's back in a half-protective, half-ushering motion. "We should totally have a rematch from the Exams! I'll definitely be able to show you a few new tricks."

"Nah," Naruto called back, "I could still beat you as easily as I can fart." He snickered as Kiba's indignant growls chased him down the street. Cat chuckled. Naruto's other bodyguards didn't join them; instead, they leapt across the rooftops, running slightly ahead and flanking them on each side of the street.

Now that he was being escorted by ANBU and no longer disguised, he attracted looks from many of the people on the street. There was almost pure darkness outside the sphere of lamps and storefronts, but walking right through the heart of it offered little cover. The looks he attracted, though, were not the same looks that he was used to. It was true that in his time, the hostility had dimmed down greatly since he became a shinobi, and subsequently defeated Neji in the Exams, but even then it had mostly been replaced with indifference and the occasional curiosity. Quite a few people were looking at him curiously now, while some looked concerned; some people even smiled fondly at him. He felt a little self-conscious that he was still wearing what amounted to his bedclothes, even if they were normal enough to pass for casual everyday wear. They would probably have to do something about that soon, since he was too small to fit into his own clothes from this time.

"So," he said awkwardly as the hospital came in sight, "you guys were guarding us the whole time?"

"Yes," Cat said, "Though another attack so soon is unlikely, neither the Hokage nor the Council want to take any chances by assuming the village is reliably safe, since the majority of our former infrastructure has been demolished. It was that relaxed assumption that led to tonight's incident."

"So I guess… you heard our conversation? It's true, then? I mean… everyone really knows about me now?"

She knew that he didn't mean about him coming from the past. "Yes… they do. It was necessary, once the Akatsuki started taking serious action against the world's Jinchuuriki. They had to know why you were being hunted, and why it was so important that Akatsuki be stopped."

"Was it... how was it? Just tell me. And don't try to say you can't," Naruto said, not looking at her.

"Everyone accepts you, Naruto-kun," she answered in an uncharacteristically gentle tone for an ANBU, "You're the village hero. Your old schoolmates in particular have collectively said 'so what?' to the news. The older generation already knew, and the younger ones followed the lead of your contemporaries. If someone from the Akatsuki came after you in the street right now, they wouldn't have just us ANBU to contend with. They'd have to fight through everyone down to the civilian street sweeper with their broom just to get to you."

He felt warmth rising to his cheeks. Okay, that _had_ to be an exaggeration, but it felt good nevertheless.

"Can't you tell me something about my older self?" he asked hopefully.

"It would be difficult to say. We aren't personally acquainted." At his disappointed look, she added, "But from what I can tell, you haven't changed very much, and what change there has been has only been for the better. Just like all shinobi, you've had to learn how to go through loss and be stronger for it rather than letting it drag you down. On that point, you have grown up admirably. It doesn't always go that way in our line of work, you know. Everyone has a breaking point, where it is all too much to take in at once. That is _partly_ why we do not like to tell you too many details," They walked into the hospital, which looked relatively dim and subdued, though a few people were sitting in the waiting room. They bypassed the desk completely and made their way up the stairs to Sai's room. "Someone once said that all shinobi must confront hatred. This is especially true for Jinchuuriki, but that does not mean that the experiences that you have been made to live necessarily prepare you to do that well. That challenge requires not only a strong character and strength of will, but maturity and time. That is the kind of strength that you grow into, and it is shaped by pain and struggle."

She left him at the door to Sai's room with assurances that he could call one of them if he or Sakura needed anything. Sighing, he went inside.

Sakura looked up from a book she was reading. She didn't look angry, like had only half-jokingly suspected, but deeply apprehensive.

"I'm sorry," she said immediately, "I didn't mean to–"

"It's okay, Sakura-chan," he interrupted. He walked over and made to sit across from her again, but paused when he saw a drawstring bag sitting in the chair.

"One of the ANBU went and collected some of your things," Sakura said, "I think most of it will be taken to the Hokage Tower until we get moved to a new building… or whatever else they decide to do with you," she said in a joking tone.

He opened the drawstring bag and saw his Team 7 photograph laying on top. _Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi_ was below that. Was it the only book they could find, or did they just somehow know it was his older self's favorite? Below that were a few shirts, and what looked like an updated version of his old nightcap. It was deep orange and had two oval-shaped, golden eyes with flat-looking irises on it.

"We'll both be spending the night here, since our apartments are destroyed anyway," Sakura explained. "They didn't bring any of your pants since you most likely wouldn't fit them. The shirts are a little big but they should be fine for sleeping in. A lot of salvaged clothing has ended up here at the hospital for charity, so I grabbed a few things for you," she gestured at the bed across from Sai's, where a few small piles of folded clothing lay.

"We're sleeping _here?_" Naruto said in dismay as he dragged his bag over to look at what she'd brought. There were a couple of pairs of shorts like the ones he was wearing, as well as a few pairs of shinobi pants and one pair of striped pajama bottoms. There was also a pair of standard-issue sandals, except they were black instead of blue like his usual ones. And then there were some plain T-shirts that were in his own size.

"Sorry about that. They have this room secured now, so you're not going anywhere else tonight at least. I'm kind of glad… this way I can look after my patients and you, too," she smiled.

"I don't _need_ looking after," Naruto grumbled, twitching the curtains around his bed and changing from his old bedclothes into new ones. "This is all way overboard, Sakura-chan. I'm a ninja."

"I know," she conceded, "And under normal circumstances, I'm sure everyone would be happy to just leave a ninja to face the murderous S-ranked organization trying to kidnap them by themselves. But with you there's more at stake than just yourself."

Naruto murmured an indistinct stream of curses and grumblings as he pulled on the proper pajama bottoms Sakura had scrounged for him. He set his sandals down below the edge of the curtain and packed the straw tabi carefully in the bag. He would return them to Shinji, _if_ he was ever allowed out of the village ever again.

He put on one of his older self's shirts to sleep in. It felt more comfortable than any of the other clothes from strangers; it was his favorite style and it smelled familiar. It was one of the few tangible connections to someone that seemed like a bizarre abstraction in his mind. It was sort of like sneakily stealing clothes from an older brother behind his back. He also put on the nightcap.

Naruto pulled the curtain back and crawled into bed with his book and turned on the little bedside lamp. He may have to stay here, but he was determined to stay awake until Tsunade came back like she said she would. He would _not_ be left out of hearing any updates she brought to Sakura.

Once settled in, he looked over and saw Sakura grinning at him.

"That cap is so cute! I haven't seen you wear one in a long time," she said.

"What? I don't wear this?" Naruto said, surprised, tugging at the end of the cap. "_Why_? The older me must not have as good tastes as I thought if he wouldn't want to wear something this cool."

"Hinata-chan made that for you," Sakura said, "She had based it off of your… ah, nevermind."

"What?" Naruto said suspiciously.

"Er– toad summons," Sakura supplied lamely. At his dubious look she hurried on, "At any rate, I think you – he felt like it was too nice to use; he didn't want to mess it up when she worked hard to make it."

"Pfft. Well, it's awesome and I'm gonna wear it. I don't care if he gets mad," Naruto pulled the covers up to his chest and leaned back against the stack of pillows. "Isn't Tsunade-baachan supposed to go see what Kakashi-sensei found out? And why doesn't _he_ come here?"

"I don't know; I've been out of the loop right beside you, remember? But Koharu-san did say they were going to the autopsy room. My guess is that wherever they went, there was a death that was unusual for some reason, and they can't make any conclusions until they figure it out. At least, that's what Shishou said when Koharu-san asked why she was taking her time here instead of going to talk to Kakashi-sensei."

"Oh yeah. I remember that," Naruto mumbled. "Does that mean that members of the Akatsuki didn't just attack _here_ today?"

"Maybe," Sakura said cautiously. "We'll just have to wait and see what Kakashi-sensei or Tsunade-sama say."

Naruto gripped the blankets on his lap. "Will I ever actually be told anything, though?"

"Well… I guess it depends."

"Great," Naruto grumbled, rolled on his side, and opened his book, "Itachi shows up for me again, my room gets smashed, I have to sleep in the hospital even though I'm not sick, I'm covered in ANBU, and I don't even know if I've screwed something up by getting someone killed that should not have been."

"Whatever happened, or whatever happens, you know it's not your fault," Sakura said, "Don't forget that. It's someone else doing this, and it's not fair to you."

Naruto didn't answer right away. No matter how many times people told him the future was none of his business, it wouldn't change how he felt. It went beyond just the implications it held for his own reality. No matter where he was, _when_ he was, he could not be indifferent. He could not stand back from the things right in front of him.

Naruto had the most practice in involving himself when others didn't want to include him. He had it down to an art form. They really should have known better.

"Okay, tell me one thing and I promise not to bother you again about it for the rest of the night," Naruto rolled over and peered over the book at Sakura.

"If I can, but you know I can't really promise that."

Naruto scowled. "Okay. Um, what you were saying before. About the… Jinchuuriki," he forced the word out. It was still hard to comprehend that there was a _term_ for it, like it was an experience that could be reduced to just a few syllables.

Sakura stiffened and looked at him uncertainly. It was clear she still felt guilty for dropping her knowledge of it on him so suddenly earlier.

"First of all, you don't have to worry about having told me anything I didn't already know; well, except that I didn't know the words for it. And I'm not mad that you know about it, either," Naruto sat up and draped an elbow over his drawn up knees to look at her seriously. "I'm really… I mean, when I was out there… I don't know how it happened, but I'm really relieved that everyone knows now and it's all okay. It's a weight off like you wouldn't believe.

"So, about what you said about all the Jinchuuriki in the world being in trouble. There's only one person I've ever known like me, and he wasn't someone that struck me as having a lot of people that would be willing to stand up for him," Naruto tried to swallow the heavy lump settling in his throat. He halfway didn't want to ask, because he had a very bad feeling about the answer. After all, she'd said _most_ of them were already taken. A boy whose own people had already tried to dispose of him would have no chance; Naruto couldn't help but think this was one of those 'pains and struggles' Cat mentioned the older him had to go through.

"You mean Gaara," Sakura said.

Naruto nodded. "What happened to him? The Akatsuki went for him too, didn't they?"

"Well…" she looked reluctant, like she wanted to find a way to steer the conversation away from the topic.

"Just tell me if he's safe," Naruto pleaded.

"Hm. Safe? I don't think any of us are really safe," Sakura folded her hands in her lap, "But… he is alive. He is well. And…" she smiled, "I can at least say that his village accepts him now, too."

Naruto stared at her disbelievingly. Then he grinned widely. "Are you serious?"

"Very. He's mellowed out a lot since meeting you. He even has fangirls in his village now. I've seen it," Sakura laughed.

"That might be the craziest thing I've heard since coming here!" Naruto said, "You're seriously not just messing with me right now?"

"Nope! I swear."

"Aw, now I feel silly for worrying so much," Naruto laughed and lay back against his pillows, relieved.

"You had good reason to. Well, that's that. You remember what you said; no more pestering me for information tonight."

"Argh… fine," Naruto grumbled. He still wanted to find out what she knew about Itachi's possibly-dead, possibly-not-dead status. Whatever had happened between the Uchiha brothers or how reluctant Sasuke might be to divulge it, he knew that if _anyone_ was privy to that information, it would be his team. Tsunade was the other obvious choice, so Naruto resolved to be patient and wait for her or Kakashi to come by. If not, there was always tomorrow. And the next day. And however long he had to be here before things went back to the way they were.

"I'm not going to sleep," he informed Sakura petulantly. "Not till Baachan comes back or Kakashi-sensei tells us what they found like he _said_ he would."

"Okay, you do that."

"I will."

"Good."

"It _is_ good."

"Right."

Naruto opened his book and narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously over the edge of it, before shifting his gaze to page one with a resolute air.

He was asleep by the next hour. Sakura crossed the room and carefully picked the open book on his chest out of the hand curled loosely over it. She marked his place and set it on the bedside table before shutting off the bedside lamp.

It was just as well, because neither Tsunade nor Kakashi came back to the room that night. News from Anko's Infilteration and Reconnaissance team brought a telling update on the movements of one Yakushi Kabuto. Evidence was rapidly falling into place that he had an agenda separate from the supposed alliance with Madara; one that involved the Reanimation Jutsu Orochimaru had made a point to develop and perfect. His motives were unknown, and it was unclear whether his suspicious behavior had anything to do with Naruto's appearance out of time. Like Orochimaru before him, he was becoming the wildcard; an agent of chaos that liked to make waves in the world. They, along with others of the Konoha elite, spent the better part of the night scrambling to compile everything they knew into a coherent theory Tsunade could take to the coming meeting of Kage in Kumogakure. Everything that had happened moved up the date of that meeting significantly.

…..

**I really like Sai and Sakura and the whole 'team is a family' thing… though I guess if you had a problem with either of those characters you would have already cleared out of here by now!**

**Review on your way out please! I will try to respond to all signed reviews, unless I just can't think of a response to what you said, which is unlikely because I love to talk. Or, you know, something pesky like real life gets in the way. **

**See you later!**


End file.
